"Nothing, but enable him to obtain what these debtors who can pay for it obtain,--a chamber, _a la pistole_." "Alas, then, he is lost, if they hate him in prison." "Oh, don't be downhearted, we will look well to him. But I repeat, my dear, do advise him to familiarise himself a little,--the first step is half the battle." "I will advise him as strongly as I can, sir. But for a good and honest heart it is very hard, you know, to familiarise itself with such people." "Of two evils we must choose the least. Now I will fetch M. Germain. But now I think of it," said the turnkey, "there are only two visitors; wait until they are gone, there'll not be any more to-day, for it is two o'clock. I will then fetch M. Germain, and you can talk at your ease. I can then, when you are alone, let him come into the passage, so that you will be separated by one grating instead of two. Won't that be better?" "Ah, sir, how kind you are, and how much I thank you!" "Hush! Do not let any one hear you, or they may be jealous. Sit down there at the end of the bench, and when this man and woman have gone, I will tell M. Germain." The turnkey returned to his post inside the grating, and Rigolette sat down very melancholy at the end of the visitors' bench. Whilst the grisette is awaiting the coming of Germain, we will allow the reader to overhear the conversation of the prisoners who remained there after the departure of Nicholas Martial. CHAPTER VI. PIQUE-VINAIGRE. The prisoner who was beside Barbillon was a man about forty-five years of age, thin, mean-looking, with a keen, intelligent, jovial, merry face. He had an enormous mouth, almost entirely toothless; and, when he spoke, he worked it from side to side, very much after the style of those orators who are accustomed to harangue from booths at fairs. His nose was flat, his head disproportionately large and nearly bald; he wore an old gray knit worsted waistcoat, a pair of trousers of indescribable colour, torn and patched in a thousand places; his feet, half wrapped up in pieces of old linen, were thrust into wooden shoes. This man, Fortune Gobert, called Pique-Vinaigre, formerly a juggler, a convict freed after condemnation for the crime of uttering false money, was charged with having broken from gaol and committed violent burglary. Having been confined but very few days in La Force, Pique-Vinaigre already filled the office of story-teller, to the general satisfaction of his fellow prisoners. Now story-tellers have become very rare, but formerly each ward had usually, for a slight general subscription, its official story-teller, who, by his narrations, made the long winter evenings appear less tedious when the prisoners went to bed at sunset.