He looked at me attentively from head to foot, and then broke into a low chuckling laugh.

“Ha! ha!” he muttered, half to himself, half to me.  “Good—­good!  Here is one like myself—­not afraid—­not afraid!  We are not cowards.  We do not find fault with the blessed saints—­they send the plague.  The beautiful plague!—­I love it!  I buy all the clothes I can get that are taken from the corpses—­they are nearly always excellent clothes.  I never clean them—­I sell them again at once—­yes—­yes!  Why not?  The people must die—­the sooner the better!  I help the good God as much as I can.”  And the old blasphemer crossed himself devoutly.

I looked down upon him from where I stood drawn up to my full height, with a glance of disgust.  He filled me with something of the same repulsion I had felt when I touched the unnameable Thing that fastened on my neck while I slept in the vault.

“Come!” I said, somewhat roughly, “will you sell me a suit or no?”

“Yes, yes!” and he rose stiffly from his seat; he was very short of stature, and so bent with age and infirmity that he looked more like the crooked bough of a tree than a man, as he hobbled before me into his dark shop.  “Come inside, come inside!  Take your choice; there is enough here to suit all tastes.  See now, what would you?  Behold here the dress of a gentleman, ah! what beautiful cloth, what strong wool!  English make?  Yes, yes!  He was English that wore it; a big, strong milord, that drank beer and brandy like water—­and rich—­just heaven!—­how rich!  But the plague took him; he died cursing God, and calling bravely for more brandy.  Ha, ha! a fine death—­a splendid death!  His landlord sold me his clothes for three francs—­one, two, three—­but you must give me six; that is fair profit, is it not?  And I am old and poor.  I must make something to live upon.”

I threw aside the tweed suit he displayed for my inspection.  “Nay,” I said, “I care nothing for the plague, but find me something better than the cast-off clothing of a brandy-soaked Englishman.  I would rather wear the motley garb of a fellow who played the fool in carnival.”

The old dealer laughed with a crackling sound in his withered throat, like the rattling of stones in a tin pot.

“Good, good!” he croaked.  “I like that, I like that!  Thou art old, but thou art merry.  That pleases me; one should laugh always.  Why not?  Death laughs; you never see a solemn skull; it laughs always!”

And he plunged his long lean fingers into a deep drawer full of miscellaneous garments, mumbling to himself all the while.  I stood beside him in silence, pondering on his words, “Thou art old, but merry.”  What did he mean by calling me old?  He must be blind, I thought, or in his dotage.  Suddenly he looked up.