Page 1616 - les-miserables

or a muleteer to his mules.
‘Don’t be afraid!—That’s it!—Come on!—Put your feet
there!— Give us your hand here!—Boldly!’
And when the child was within reach, he seized him sud-
denly and vigorously by the arm, and pulled him towards
him.
‘Nabbed!’ said he.
The brat had passed through the crack.
‘Now,’ said Gavroche, ‘wait for me. Be so good as to take
a seat, Monsieur.’
And making his way out of the hole as he had entered it,
he slipped down the elephant’s leg with the agility of a mon-
key, landed on his feet in the grass, grasped the child of five
round the body, and planted him fairly in the middle of the
ladder, then he began to climb up behind him, shouting to
the elder:—
‘I’m going to boost him, do you tug.’
And in another instant, the small lad was pushed,
dragged, pulled, thrust, stuffed into the hole, before he had
time to recover himself, and Gavroche, entering behind
him, and repulsing the ladder with a kick which sent it flat
on the grass, began to clap his hands and to cry:—
‘Here we are! Long live General Lafayette!’
This explosion over, he added:—
‘Now, young ‘uns, you are in my house.’
Gavroche was at home, in fact.
Oh, unforeseen utility of the useless! Charity of great
things! Goodness of giants! This huge monument, which
had embodied an idea of the Emperor’s, had become the box

1616 Les Miserables