"Why, then, I'll tell you what I should do,--I should dash out my brains against the walls. I would starve rather than be in a solitary cell. What, all alone! all my life alone with myself,--and no chance of escape! I tell you it is impossible. Well, you know, there's no man more reckless than I am--I'd kill a man for a dollar, and for nothing if my honour was concerned; they believe I have only killed two persons, but if the dead could tell tales there are five tongues could say what I have done." The ruffian was boasting. The sanguinary declarations are still another trait of the hardened criminals. A governor of a prison said to us, "If the assassinations boasted of by these scoundrels were really committed, the population would be decimated." "And I, too," said Barbillon, desirous of bragging in his turn; "they think I only silenced the husband of the milk-woman in the Cite, but I did many others with tall Robert, who suffered last year." "I was going to say," continued the Skeleton, "that I fear neither fire nor devil. Well, if I were in a solitary cell, and certain I could not escape,--thunder! I believe I should be frightened!" "And so, if you had to begin your time over again as prig and throttler, and if, instead of central houses, galleys, and guillotine, there were only solitary cells, you would hesitate before such a chance?" "_Ma foi!_ I believe I really should!" replied the Skeleton. And he said truly. It is impossible to describe the vast terror which such ruffians experience at the very idea of being in solitary confinement. And is not this very terror an eloquent plea in favour of this punishment? * * * * * An uproarious noise made by the prisoners in the yard interrupted the Skeleton's council. Nicholas rose hastily, and went to the door of the room to discover the cause of this unusual tumult. "It is the Gros-Boiteux," said Nicholas, returning. "The Gros-Boiteux!" exclaimed the _prevot_. "And has Germain come down from the visiting-room?" "Not yet," replied Barbillon. "Then let him make haste," said the Skeleton, "and I'll give him an order for a new coffin." The Gros-Boiteux, whose arrival was so warmly hailed by the prisoners in the lions' den, and whose information might be so fatal to Germain, was a man of middle stature; but, in spite of being fat and crippled, he was nimble and vigorous. His countenance, brutal like that of most of his companions, was of the bulldog character; his low forehead, his small yellow eyes, his flaccid cheeks, his heavy jaws, the lower being very projecting, and armed with long teeth, or, rather, broken fangs, which in places projected beyond his lips, made his resemblance to that animal the more striking. He wore a felt cap, and over his clothes a blue cloak with a fur collar.