"These folks will amuse
themselves by dragging out this business till the end of time to keep
me idle. If they were to send me straight to jail, I should soon be
back at my old tricks in spite of the duffers at the Quai des
Orfevres. Down yonder they will all turn themselves inside out to help
their general--their good Trompe-la-Mort--to get clear away. Is there
a single one among you that can say, as I can, that he has ten
thousand brothers ready to do anything for him?" he asked proudly.
"There is some good there," he said tapping his heart; "I have never
betrayed any one!--Look you here, you slut," he said to the old maid,
"they are all afraid of me, do you see? but the sight of you turns
them sick. Rake in your gains."
He was silent for a moment, and looked round at the lodgers' faces.
"What dolts you are, all of you! Have you never seen a convict before?
A convict of Collin's stamp, whom you see before you, is a man less
weak-kneed than others; he lifts up his voice against the colossal
fraud of the Social Contract, as Jean Jacques did, whose pupil he is
proud to declare himself. In short, I stand here single-handed against
a Government and a whole subsidized machinery of tribunals and police,
and I am a match for them all.
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