A small, mean, cringing figure, his head almost buried in the collar of his great-coat, his hands clasped in a suppliant attitude, the old usurer listened quietly to the recriminations that rose on all sides, guessing that for sure he would be in the tightest of tight places before long. “Good day to you, mates all,” he greeted the angry crowd, and said no more for the moment. But, after a brief pause, seeing looks of anger and suspicion scanning him from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, he added in a whining voice: “Beg pardon, but we’d be better elsewhere: suppose we adjourn to the deck of the _Marie-Salope_ (the dredger) over there?” All agreed; only “Bull’s-eye” slipped in a question: “There’s nobody there?” A general shout reassured him: “Why, who’d ever dare to come?” Still, by way of further precaution, “Big Ernestine” climbed down into the lighter, moored in the wake of the dredger, into which the buckets when working emptied their contents. Another minute and the woman was up again, satisfied with her inspection, and declaring: “All clear!” But Moche now pointed out that they were wasting precious time, gassing without saying anything to the point. “We’re here to talk business, so let’s begin.” The company took seats as they best could, some on the bulwarks, some on the deck-planks of the dredger, forming a circle in the middle of which Père Moche took his stand—and the trial opened. “Trial” is the right word, for truly the speaker was pleading for his life before his judges seated round him, whom even a superficial observer would have found no difficulty in recognizing as ready to go to the most violent extremities. It was the “Beadle” who undertook the prosecution. All the while brandishing before the face of the culprit, who stood impassive before him, his redoubtable clenched fists, the weight of which was familiar to all the onlookers and which without an effort could have felled the unhappy old man to the ground, he began with an artful reference that instantly won him the sympathy of his audience. “Père Moche,” he said, “you are come, and that is well, for it behooves us once for all to understand each other, us and you. You can see for yourself, that, among the chosen few of our band, one only is missing, poor ‘Beauty Boy,’ and if he has been nabbed, if he is in the stone jug, waiting till the bigwigs send him overseas, that is entirely your fault; I don’t mean to say you sold him to the ’tecs, but you left him without coin, without a yellow boy, without a stiver, and forced him to muck it somehow or other, so that ...” A triple round of applause allowed the orator to take breath, which he did long and noisily, and to add another touch: