Priceless works of art were hurled about and destroyed. The cellars of old wines were quickly emptied by drunken revelers. The kitchen and pantries catered to the mob's gluttony. Wenches arrayed themselves in the Countess's costly silks and linens; perfumed, powdered and painted with the cosmetics; preened and perked in the cheval mirrors. Among the motley crew of destroyers, drunkards, gluttons, satyrs and sirens, our friend the Jolly Baker was on the job--unfortunately for him, accompanied this time by his hatchet-faced spouse. He started a flirtation with a new-made vamp, all tricked out in stolen finery. The Jolly Baker had found a new use for his eyes and eyebrows, i.e., to convey love messages. He was making the most alarming motions and succeeding most prodigiously in evoking the new vamp's answering smiles when-- "Ker-plunk!" --Dame Baker fetched him a tremendous slap directly on the face that caused him to see innumerable little stars. Gradually coming back to this mundane world, the Jolly Baker resolved to devote his strict attention to the bottle.... CHAPTER XIX KNIFE DUEL AND ESCAPE The bundle on the cellar floor of the Frochards den stirred again, this time more actively. The crippled knife-grinder Pierre had entered. His mother was again busied with her potations. Under the half-lifted rags showed the tear-stained face of Louise. The heavy fatigue of street mendicancy had wrapped her in deep sleep, from which she woke with a start to her wretched surroundings. The misery of it all overwhelmed her. She sobbed, and the big tears descended from her blind eyes. "Don't cry, Louise!" begged the almost equally wretched Pierre. "There may yet be escape and the finding of your sister. Oh!" he said to himself. "If I had but the courage to lay down my life that I might make her happy!" * * * * * The ruffian Jacques Frochard was exhibiting a sinister interest in the blind girl. He had forbidden Pierre to speak to her or come near her, and now as he entered, the crippled brother shrank away. "Get up and go to work!" said Mother Frochard to the girl roughly, yanking her to her feet. "I'll find a way to make her work!" laughed Jacques with fiendish coarseness. "You'll slave for me, eh, my pretty? Yes, for you, no one but Jacques!" He leered at her as he appropriated the coins of her singing. Huddled in the corner, the silent cripple bit his finger knuckles until they bled.... * * * * * Inflamed with liquor and lust, Jacques soon decided to carry out his purpose. "Come with me, my little beauty!" Mother Frochard chuckled at the sight of him mastering her. Struggle wildly as the poor blind creature would to avoid his grip, he was dragging her slowly to the stair while her screams were stifled by one rough hand over her mouth.