Page 2159 - les-miserables

Perchance the reader might recognize these two men, if
he were to see them closer at hand.
What was the object of the second man?
Probably to succeed in clothing the first more warmly.
When a man clothed by the state pursues a man in rags,
it is in order to make of him a man who is also clothed by
the state. Only, the whole question lies in the color. To be
dressed in blue is glorious; to be dressed in red is disagree-
able.
There is a purple from below.
It is probably some unpleasantness and some purple of
this sort which the first man is desirous of shirking.
If the other allowed him to walk on, and had not seized
him as yet, it was, judging from all appearances, in the hope
of seeing him lead up to some significant meeting-place and
to some group worth catching. This delicate operation is
called ‘spinning.’
What renders this conjecture entirely probable is that
the buttoned-up man, on catching sight from the shore of
a hackney-coach on the quay as it was passing along empty,
made a sign to the driver; the driver understood, evidently
recognized the person with whom he had to deal, turned
about and began to follow the two men at the top of the
quay, at a foot-pace. This was not observed by the slouching
and tattered personage who was in advance.
The hackney-coach rolled along the trees of the Champs-
Elysees. The bust of the driver, whip in hand, could be seen
moving along above the parapet.
One of the secret instructions of the police authorities

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