Do you understand that ?" "Good," said Gringoire; "I understand that.

And then ?" "If you succeed in removing the purse without our hearing the bells, you are a vagabond, and you will be thrashed for eight consecutive days.

You understand now, no doubt ?" "No, monseigneur; I no longer understand.

Where is the advantage to me?
hanged in one case, cudgelled in the other ?" "And a vagabond," resumed Clopin, "and a vagabond; is that nothing?
It is for your interest that we should beat you, in order to harden you to blows." "Many thanks," replied the poet.
"Come, make haste," said the king, stamping upon his cask, which resounded like a huge drum! "Search the manikin, and let there be an end to this! I warn you for the last time, that if I hear a single bell, you will take the place of the manikin." The band of thieves applauded Clopin's words, and arranged themselves in a circle round the gibbet, with a laugh so pitiless that Gringoire perceived that he amused them too much not to have everything to fear from them.

No hope was left for him, accordingly, unless it were the slight chance of succeeding in the formidable operation which was imposed upon him; he decided to risk it, but it was not without first having addressed a fervent prayer to the manikin he was about to plunder, and who would have been easier to move to pity than the vagabonds.