His polished skin is quite black, with steely reflections; his body is well knit and as vigorous as a tiger's, and his teeth are so white that they almost frighten one.
King of the penitentiary by right of strength, all the convicts fear and admire him; his athletic reputation compels him to test every newcomer, and up to the present time, all these contests have turned out in his favour.

He can bend iron rods over his knee, carry three men with one hand, and knock down eight by opening his arms; he eats three times as much as an ordinary man, for he has an enormous appetite and a heroic constitution.
When we saw him, he was watering the plants in the botanical garden.

He is always hanging around the hot-house behind the plants and the palm-trees, digging the soil and cleansing the wood-work.
On Thursday, when the public is admitted, Ambroise receives his mistresses behind the boxed orange-trees; he has several of them, in fact, more than he wishes.

He knows how to procure them, whether by his charms, his strength or his money, which he always carries in quantities about his person and spends lavishly whenever he wishes to enjoy himself.

So he is very popular among a certain class of women, and the people who have put him where he is, have never perhaps been loved as much as Ambroise.
In the middle of the garden, in a little lake shaded by a willow-tree and bordered by plants, is a swan.