巴黎的流浪儿——街头的阿拉伯少年——是巨人的侏儒。
我们不必夸大其词，这个阴沟里的小天使有时也穿衬衫，但若是如此，那便是他唯一的一件；他有时也有鞋子，但鞋底早已磨穿；他有时也有住处，而且很爱它，因为他能在那里找到母亲；但他更爱街道，因为在那里他能找到自由。他有自己的游戏，自己的恶作剧，其基础在于对资产阶级的憎恨；他有自己独特的比喻：死了就是"去吃蒲公英的根"；他有自己的营生：为出租马车吆喝，放下马车踏板，在暴雨中为街道两边搭建临时的通道——他称之为"造艺术桥"，呼喊当局为法国人民发表的演说，清理人行道缝隙里的污垢；他还有自己的货币，由街边捡来的各种小片加工铜片组成。这种被称为"破布"（loques）的奇怪货币，在这个小波希米亚人的圈子里有着恒定且规范的流通规则。
最后，他还有自己的动物学，在街角仔细地观察：瓢虫、骷髅头蚜虫、长腿蜘蛛，"魔鬼"——一种黑色的昆虫，靠扭动长着两只角的尾巴来恫吓敌人。他有自己想象中的怪物，这种怪物腹部有鳞片却不是蜥蜴，背上有脓包却不是蟾蜍，栖息在旧石灰窑和干涸水井的角落里，通体漆黑、毛茸茸、黏糊糊的，有时缓慢爬行，有时快速移动，不会叫唤，但眼神可怖至极，从未有人真正见过它；他称这怪物为"聋货"。在石头缝里搜寻这些"聋货"是一种惊心动魄的乐趣。另一种乐趣是突然撬起一块铺路石，看看下面的潮虫。巴黎的每个地区都因能发现有趣宝物而闻名。乌尔苏拉会的木料场里有蠼螋，先贤祠附近有千足虫，战神广场的沟渠里有蝌蚪。
至于俏皮话，这个孩子简直像塔列朗一样能说会道。他同样玩世不恭，但更为诚实。他天生有一种难以形容、出人意料的欢快劲头；他用狂野的笑声打乱店主的镇定。他大胆地从高雅喜剧一路胡闹到滑稽戏。
一支送葬队伍经过。送葬者中有位医生。"嘿！"某个流浪儿喊道，"医生什么时候开始亲自送货上门了？"
另一次，人群中，一位戴着眼镜、别着饰品的严肃男子愤怒地转过身来："小无赖，你抓了我老婆的腰！""我，先生？搜我身上啊！"
The gamin—the street Arab—of Paris is the dwarf of the giant.
Let us not exaggerate, this cherub of the gutter sometimes has a shirt,
but, in that case, he owns but one; he sometimes has shoes, but then
they have no soles; he sometimes has a lodging, and he loves it, for he
finds his mother there; but he prefers the street, because there he
finds liberty. He has his own games, his own bits of mischief, whose
foundation consists of hatred for the bourgeois; his peculiar
metaphors: to be dead is _to eat dandelions by the root_; his own
occupations, calling hackney-coaches, letting down carriage-steps,
establishing means of transit between the two sides of a street in
heavy rains, which he calls _making the bridge of arts_, crying
discourses pronounced by the authorities in favor of the French people,
cleaning out the cracks in the pavement; he has his own coinage, which
is composed of all the little morsels of worked copper which are found
on the public streets. This curious money, which receives the name of
_loques_—rags—has an invariable and well-regulated currency in this
little Bohemia of children.
Lastly, he has his own fauna, which he observes attentively in the
corners; the lady-bird, the death’s-head plant-louse, the
daddy-long-legs, “the devil,” a black insect, which menaces by twisting
about its tail armed with two horns. He has his fabulous monster, which
has scales under its belly, but is not a lizard, which has pustules on
its back, but is not a toad, which inhabits the nooks of old lime-kilns
and wells that have run dry, which is black, hairy, sticky, which
crawls sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, which has no cry, but which
has a look, and is so terrible that no one has ever beheld it; he calls
this monster “the deaf thing.” The search for these “deaf things” among
the stones is a joy of formidable nature. Another pleasure consists in
suddenly prying up a paving-stone, and taking a look at the wood-lice.
Each region of Paris is celebrated for the interesting treasures which
are to be found there. There are ear-wigs in the timber-yards of the
Ursulines, there are millepeds in the Pantheon, there are tadpoles in
the ditches of the Champs-de-Mars.
As far as sayings are concerned, this child has as many of them as
Talleyrand. He is no less cynical, but he is more honest. He is endowed
with a certain indescribable, unexpected joviality; he upsets the
composure of the shopkeeper with his wild laughter. He ranges boldly
from high comedy to farce.
A funeral passes by. Among those who accompany the dead there is a
doctor. “Hey there!” shouts some street Arab, “how long has it been
customary for doctors to carry home their own work?”
Another is in a crowd. A grave man, adorned with spectacles and
trinkets, turns round indignantly: “You good-for-nothing, you have
seized my wife’s waist!”—“I, sir? Search me!”
