and hoisted them again, a feeble grove of dim wicks swung in a sickly
manner overhead, as if they were at sea. Indeed they were at sea,
and the ship and crew were in peril of tempest.

For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region
should have watched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger,
so long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and
hauling up men by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the
darkness of their condition. But, the time was not come yet; and
every wind that blew over France shook the rags of the scarecrows
in vain, for the birds, fine of song and feather, took no warning.

The wine-shop was a corner shop, better than most others in its
appearance and degree, and the master of the wine-shop had stood
outside it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on at
the struggle for the lost wine. "It's not my affair," said he,
with a final shrug of the shoulders. "The people from the market
did it. Let them bring another."

There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing up his
joke, he called to him across the way:

"Say, then, my Gaspard, what do you do there?"

The fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, as is often
the way with his tribe. It missed its mark, and completely failed,
as is often the way with his tribe too.

"What now? Are you a subject for the mad hospital?" said the
wine-shop keeper, crossing the road, and obliterating the jest with