“I will not betray you,” answered my father, “a good song is worth a glass of wine to me, and even more, I do not say anything either about the knives, and I am glad, my good fellow, that you sell yours, for all the world must live. But acknowledge that one cannot allow wandering hawkers to enter into competition with tradesmen who rent a shop and pay taxes. Nothing is more contrary to law and order. The impudence of these draggle-tails is unspeakable. How far would it not go were it not checked. Last year did not a peasant from Montrouge come to a stop in front of the _Reine Pédauque_ with his little cart full of pigeons that he was selling, ready cooked, for two liards and a sou cheaper than I sell mine! And the bumpkin cried, in a voice fit to crack the windows of my shop, ‘Beautiful pigeons for five sous.’ I threatened him twenty times with my larding-pin. But he answered me, stupidly, that the street belonged to all the world. I made a complaint to the _Lieutenant-Criminel_ who saw justice done, and rid me of the villain. I do not know what has become of him, but I owe him a grudge for the harm he did me, for the sight of my usual customers, buying his pigeons, by couples, nay even by half-dozens, gave me an attack of jaundice, from the effect of which I became melancholy for a long time. I wish they’d stick as many feathers on his body, with glue, as he had plucked from the winged creatures he sold ready-cooked in my very face, and that thus be-feathered from head to foot he was led through the streets at the tail of his cart.” “Monsieur Léonard,” said the lame cutler, “you are hard on poor people. It is thus the unfortunate are driven to desperation.”