has promised me some more to-morrow, but I don't know if I shall be at
my usual place."

"Ah! how is that, la mere?" asked Bibot, who, hardened soldier that
he was, could not help shuddering at the awful loathsomeness of this
semblance of a woman, with her ghastly trophy on the handle of her whip.

"My grandson has got the small-pox," she said with a jerk of her thumb
towards the inside of her cart, "some say it's the plague! If it is, I
sha'n't be allowed to come into Paris to-morrow." At the first mention
of the word small-pox, Bibot had stepped hastily backwards, and when the
old hag spoke of the plague, he retreated from her as fast as he could.

"Curse you!" he muttered, whilst the whole crowd hastily avoided the
cart, leaving it standing all alone in the midst of the place.

The old hag laughed.

"Curse you, citoyen, for being a coward," she said. "Bah! what a man to
be afraid of sickness."

"MORBLEU! the plague!"

Everyone was awe-struck and silent, filled with horror for the loathsome
malady, the one thing which still had the power to arouse terror and
disgust in these savage, brutalised creatures.

"Get out with you and with your plague-stricken brood!" shouted Bibot,
hoarsely.