"No one knew whence Cut-in-half came; some said he was an Italian, others a
gipsy, others a Turk, others an African; the old women called him a
magician, although a magician in these days may appear fishy; as for me, I
should be quite tempted to say the same as the old women. What makes this
likely is, that he always had with him a great red ape called Gargousse,
which was so cunning, and wicked, that one would have said he had Old Nick
in him. By and by I shall speak again of Gargousse. As to Cut-'em-in-half,
I am going to show him up; he had skin the color of a bootlining, hair as
red as the hide of his ape, green eyes, and what makes me think with the
old women that he was a magician, is, that he had a black tongue."

"Black tongue?" said Barbillon.

"Black as ink!" answered Pique-Vinaigre.

"And how is that?"

"Because, before he was born, his mother had probably spoken of a negro,"
answered Pique-Vinaigre, with modest assurance. "To this ornament,
Cut-in-half joined the trade of having I do not know how many tortoises,
apes, guinea-pigs, white mice, foxes and marmots, with an equal number of
little Savoyards.

"Every morning, the padrone distributed to each one his beast and a piece
of black bread, and started them off, to beg for a sou or dance a Catalina.
Those who, at night, brought back less than fifteen sous were beaten, oh!
how they were beaten! so that they were heard to cry from one end of Little
Poland to the other.

"I must tell you also that there was in Little Poland a man who was called