Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 101: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ALFRED DE ROSANN. 93 till I have made known to the world my cotelettes a la quadrille P’ “Sacre mille tonnerres !’’ roared the irritated old man: “ the villain wishes me to dance a guadrille at my time of life; but, by the eternal God! I will make him caper to a pretty tune, if he do not instantly submit his unholy carcase to the investigation !? “Tam at your mercy,” said Champignon, resign- edly. ‘ Speak—what would you have me do?” * “* ‘Take off your clothes as quickly as possible.”? The gastronomer obeyed with a ‘piteous face, and Plombier soon terminated hisscrutiny; he accordingly motioned Champignon to resume his apparel ; but the sign was misunderstood and the ex-restaurateur of the Cadran Rouge, bewildered and confused, and almost unconscious of what he was doing, opened the door of the cabinet, and appeared amongst the Gen- darmes, and the rest of the convicts who waited to pass their examination, in his shirt. The step was rather higher than he fancied it to be; and in des- cending it too hastily, his foot slipped, and down he fell. An immense dog, that hitherto lay reposing in his kennel at the farther end of the yard, was aroused and alarmed at the sudden apparition of a being in so unseemly a guise; and rushing-from his den, he flew upon the unfortunate gastronomer’s back in the twinkling of an eye; but before he could do any es- sential mischief, a Gendarme promptly interfered, and succeeded in withdrawing the animal, while the discomfited Champignon arose amidst shouts of laughter, declaring “ it was the first time in his Ife he had ever been taken for a cofelette en papillote.’’ On the following morning the prison garb was dis- tributed to each of the convicts who had entered the day before; and their names were worked in full length upon their caps, with a supernumerary dis- tinction emphatically expressed by the letters G A L.* Thus the ceremony of examination by the old man * Galerien, galley-slave. GoOMmiiGcdoo KS