try lasted for a quarter of an hour and killed several panes of glass.
In the meanwhile, Gavroche, who had retraced his steps at full speed, halted five or six streets distant and seated himself, panting, on the stone post which forms the corner of the Enfants-Rouges.
He listened.
After panting for a few minutes, he turned in the direction where the fusillade was raging, lifted his left hand to a level with his nose and thrust it forward three times, as he slapped the back of his head with his right hand; an imperious gesture in which Parisian street-urchindom has condensed French irony, and which is evidently efficacious, since it has already lasted half a century.
This gayety was troubled by one bitter reflection.
"Yes," said he, "I''m splitting with laughter, I''m twisting with delight, I abound in joy, but I''m losing my way, I shall have to take a roundabout way.
If I only reach the barricade in season!"
Thereupon he set out again on a run.
And as he ran:--
"Ah, by the way, where was I?" said he.
And he resumed his ditty, as he plunged rapidly through the streets, and this is what died away in the gloom:--
"Mais il reste encore des bastilles,
Et je vais mettre le hola
Dans l''orde public que voila.
Ou vont les belles filles,
Lon la.
"Quelqu''un veut-il jouer aux quilles?