If it be curious to note the desire for these fictions which these outcasts display, it is yet a more singular thing to reflect upon the hearing of these recitals. Men corrupted to the very marrow, thieves, and murderers, prefer especially the histories in which are expressed generous, heroic sentiments, recitals in which weakness and goodness are avenged in fierce retribution. It is the same thing with women of lost reputation; they are singularly fond of simple, touching, and sentimental details, and almost invariably refuse to read obscene books. Pique-Vinaigre excelled in that kind of heroic tales in which weakness, after a thousand trials, concludes by triumphing over persecution. He possessed, besides, a deep fund of satire, which had procured for him his name, his repartees being very frequently ironical or merry. He had just entered the reception-room. Opposite to him, on the other side of the grating, was a female of about thirty-five years of age, of pale, mild, and interesting countenance, meanly but cleanly clad. She was weeping bitterly, and held a handkerchief to her eyes. Pique-Vinaigre looked at her with a mixture of impatience and affection. "Come, Jeanne," he said, "do not play the child. It is sixteen years since we met, and to keep your handkerchief up to your eyes is not the way for us to know each other again." "Brother--my poor, dear Fortune! I am choking--I cannot speak." "Ah, nonsense! What ails you?" His sister repressed her sobs, wiped her eyes, and, looking at him with astonishment, replied, "What ails me? What, when I find you again in prison, where you have already been fifteen years!" "True. It is six months to-day since I left Melun; and I didn't call upon you in Paris because the capital was forbidden to me." "Why did you leave Beaugency when you were under surveillance?" "In the first place, Jeanne, since the gratings are between us, you must fancy I have embraced you, squeezed you in my arms, as a man ought to do who has not seen his sister for an eternity. Now let us talk. A prisoner at Melun, who is called the Gros-Boiteux, told me that there was at Beaugency an old convict of his acquaintance, who employed the freed prisoners in a factory of white lead. Those who work at it in a month or two catch the lead-colic. One in three of those attacked die. It is true that others die also; but they take their time about it and get on, sometimes as long as a year or even eighteen months. Then the trade is better paid than most others, and there are fellows who hold out at it for two or three years. But they are elders--patriarchs--of the white-leaders. They die, it is true, but that is all." "And why did you choose a trade so dangerous that they die at it?"