“Willing is not all,” said Clopin gruffly. “Good-will never put an extra onion into the soup, and is of no value but for getting you into Paradise. Now, Paradise and Argot are two very different places. To be received into Argot you must first prove that you are good for something, and to that end you must search the manikin.”

“I will search,” said Gringoire, “anything you please.”

At a sign from Clopin, several Argotiers detached themselves from the group and returned a moment afterward, bearing two posts ending in two broad wooden feet, which insured them standing firmly on the ground. To the upper end of these posts they attached a cross-beam, the whole constituting a very pretty portable gallows, which Gringoire had the satisfaction of seeing erected before him in the twinkling of an eye. It was quite complete, even to the rope swinging gracefully from the transverse beam.

“What are they after now?” Gringoire asked himself with some uneasiness. The jingling of little bells, which at that moment sounded on his ear, banished his anxiety, for it proceeded from a stuffed figure which the Vagabonds were hanging by the neck to the rope, a sort of scarecrow, dressed in red and covered with little tinkling bells sufficient to equip thirty Castilian mules. The jingling of these thousand bells continued for some time under the vibration of the rope, then died slowly away and sank into complete silence as the figure hung motionless.

Then Clopin, pointing to a rickety old stool placed beneath the figure, said to Gringoire, “Mount that.”

“Death of the devil!” objected Gringoire, “I shall break my neck. Your stool halts like a distich of Martial: one leg is hexameter and one pentameter.”

“Get up,” repeated Clopin.

Gringoire mounted upon the stool and succeeded, though not without some oscillations of head and arms, in finding his centre of gravity.

“Now,” continued the King of Tunis, “twist your right foot round your left leg, and stand on tip-toe on your left foot.”

“Monseigneur,” remonstrated Gringoire, “you are determined, then, that I should break some of my limbs?”

Clopin shook his head. “Hark ye, friend—you talk too much. In two words, this is what you are to do: stand on tip-toe, as I told you; you will then be able to reach the manikin’s pocket; you will put your hand into it and pull out a purse that is there. If you do all this without a sound from one of the bells, well and good; you shall be a Vagabond. We shall then have nothing further to do but belabour you well for a week.”

“Ventre Dieu! I will be careful,” said Gringoire. “And what if I make the bells ring?”

“Then you will be hanged. Do you understand?”

“No, not at all,” declared Gringoire.

“Listen once more. You are to pick the manikin’s pocket, and if a single bell stirs during the operation you will be hanged. You understand that?”

“Yes,” said Gringoire, “I understand that. What next?”

“If you succeed in drawing out the purse without sounding a single bell, you are a Vagabond, and you will be soundly beaten for eight days running. You understand now, no doubt.”