Shortly afterwards, he passed the Hotel Lamoignon. There he uttered this appeal:—
“Forward march to the battle!”
And he was seized with a fit of melancholy. He gazed at his pistol with an air of reproach which seemed an attempt to appease it:—
“I’m going off,” said he, “but you won’t go off!”
One dog may distract the attention from another dog. A very gaunt poodle came along at the moment. Gavroche felt compassion for him.
“My poor doggy,” said he, “you must have gone and swallowed a cask, for all the hoops are visible.”
Then he directed his course towards l’Orme-Saint-Gervais.
III
Just Indignation of a Hairdresser
The worthy hairdresser who had chased from his shop the two little fellows to whom Gavroche had opened the paternal interior of the elephant was at that moment in his shop engaged in shaving an old soldier of the legion who had served under the Empire. They were talking. The hairdresser had, naturally, spoken to the veteran of the riot, then of General Lamarque, and from Lamarque they had passed to the Emperor. Thence sprang up a conversation between barber and soldier which Prudhomme, had he been present, would have enriched with arabesques, and which he would have entitled: “Dialogue between the razor and the sword.”
“How did the Emperor ride, sir?” said the barber.
“Badly. He did not know how to fall—so he never fell.”