Les Misérables, page 157
CHAPTER II--SOME OF HIS PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS
The gamin--the street Arab--of Paris is the dwarf of the giant.
Let us not exaggerate, this cherub of the gutter sometimes has a shirt,but, in that case, he owns but one; he sometimes has shoes, but thenthey have no soles; he sometimes has a lodging, and he loves it, forhe finds his mother there; but he prefers the street, because there hefinds liberty. He has his own games, his own bits of mischief, whosefoundation consists of hatred for the bourgeois; his peculiar metaphors:to be dead is _to eat dandelions by the root_; his own occupations,calling hackney-coaches, letting down carriage-steps, establishing meansof transit between the two sides of a street in heavy rains, which hecalls _making the bridge of arts_, crying discourses pronounced by theauthorities in favor of the French people, cleaning out the cracksin the pavement; he has his own coinage, which is composed of all thelittle morsels of worked copper which are found on the public streets.This curious money, which receives the name of _loques_--rags--hasan invariable and well-regulated currency in this little Bohemia ofchildren.
Lastly, he has his own fauna, which he observes attentively inthe corners; the lady-bird, the death's-head plant-louse, thedaddy-long-legs, "the devil," a black insect, which menaces by twistingabout its tail armed with two horns. He has his fabulous monster, whichhas scales under its belly, but is not a lizard, which has pustules onits back, but is not a toad, which inhabits the nooks of old lime-kilnsand wells that have run dry, which is black, hairy, sticky, which crawlssometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, which has no cry, but which has alook, and is so terrible that no one has ever beheld it; he calls thismonster "the deaf thing." The search for these "deaf things" amongthe stones is a joy of formidable nature. Another pleasure consists insuddenly prying up a paving-stone, and taking a look at the wood-lice.Each region of Paris is celebrated for the interesting treasures whichare to be found there. There are ear-wigs in the timber-yards of theUrsulines, there are millepeds in the Pantheon, there are tadpoles inthe ditches of the Champs-de-Mars.
As far as sayings are concerned, this child has as many of them asTalleyrand. He is no less cynical, but he is more honest. He is endowedwith a certain indescribable, unexpected joviality; he upsets thecomposure of the shopkeeper with his wild laughter. He ranges boldlyfrom high comedy to farce.
A funeral passes by. Among those who accompany the dead there is adoctor. "Hey there!" shouts some street Arab, "how long has it beencustomary for doctors to carry home their own work?"
Another is in a crowd. A grave man, adorned with spectacles andtrinkets, turns round indignantly: "You good-for-nothing, you haveseized my wife's waist!"--"I, sir? Search me!"
