'Ah Heaven, then,' said she. 'When the boat came up from Lyons, and

brought the news that the devil was actually let loose at Marseilles,

some fly-catchers swallowed it. But I? No, not I.'

'Madame, you are always right,' returned the tall Swiss. 'Doubtless you

were enraged against that man, madame?'

'Ay, yes, then!' cried the landlady, raising her eyes from her work,

opening them very wide, and tossing her head on one side. 'Naturally,

yes.' 'He was a bad subject.' 'He was a wicked wretch,' said the landlady, 'and well merited what he

had the good fortune to escape. So much the worse.'

'Stay, madame! Let us see,' returned the Swiss, argumentatively turning

his cigar between his lips. 'It may have been his unfortunate destiny.

He may have been the child of circumstances. It is always possible that

he had, and has, good in him if one did but know how to find it out.

Philosophical philanthropy teaches--'

The rest of the little knot about the stove murmured an objection to

the introduction of that threatening expression. Even the two players

at dominoes glanced up from their game, as if to protest against

philosophical philanthropy being brought by name into the Break of Day.

'Hold there, you and your philanthropy,' cried the smiling landlady,

nodding her head more than ever. 'Listen then. I am a woman, I. I know

nothing of philosophical philanthropy. But I know what I have seen, and

what I have looked in the face in this world here, where I find myself.

And I tell you this, my friend, that there are people (men and women

both, unfortunately) who have no good in them--none. That there are

people whom it is necessary to detest without compromise. That there are

people who must be dealt with as enemies of the human race. That there

are people who have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage

beasts and cleared out of the way. They are but few, I hope; but I have

seen (in this world here where I find myself, and even at the little

Break of Day) that there are such people. And I do not doubt that this

man--whatever they call him, I forget his name--is one of them.'

The landlady's lively speech was received with greater favour at

the Break of Day, than it would have elicited from certain amiable

whitewashers of the class she so unreasonably objected to, nearer Great

Britain. 'My faith! If your philosophical philanthropy,' said the landlady,

putting down her work, and rising to take the stranger's soup from her

husband, who appeared with it at a side door, 'puts anybody at the mercy

of such people by holding terms with them at all, in words or deeds, or

both, take it away from the Break of Day, for it isn't worth a sou.'




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