The two lads gazed with a timid and stupefied respect at this intrepid and inventive being, a vagabond like them, isolated like them, weak like them, who had something admirable and omnipotent about him, who appeared to them supernatural, and whose face was composed of all the grimaces of an old mountebank, mingled with the simplest and most charming smile. "Then, sir," the elder lad said timidly, "you are not afraid of the policemen?" Gavroche limited himself to answering,-- "Brat! we don't say 'policemen,' we say 'slops.'" The younger had his eyes wide open, but said nothing; as he was at the edge of the mat, the elder being in the centre, Gavroche tucked in the coverlet around him as a mother would have done, and raised the mat under his head with old rags, so as to make him a pillow. Then he turned to the elder boy,-- "Well! it is jolly here, eh?" "Oh, yes!" the lad answered, as he looked at Gavroche with the expression of a saved angel. The two poor little fellows, who were wet through, began to grow warm again. "By the bye," Gavroche went on, "why were you blubbering?" And pointing to the younger boy he said to his brother,-- "A baby like that, I don't say no; but for a tall chap like you to cry is idiotic, you look like a calf." "Well, sir," the lad said, "we hadn't any lodging to go to." "Brat," Gavroche remarked, "we don't say 'lodging,' but 'crib.'" "And then we felt afraid of being all alone like that in the night." "We don't say 'night,' but 'sorgue.'" "Thank you, sir," said the boy.