Fox of France

A month later, Fagin entered the VIP waiting room on the pier directly from the VIP passage in a carriage belonging to Jacques Coulen with the logo of the French embassy on it.

It is relatively safe to board the ship from here. After all, Fagin is a wanted criminal in the UK, and if he is caught, he will definitely be hanged. Of course, it is not particularly dangerous to go up through the ordinary passage, although there are portraits of a large group of wanted criminals, including Fagin, hanging there. Fagin knew many people there. But including Fagin himself, Fagin has never seen even a single portrait of a wanted criminal that looks alike, and some of the portraits even have the gender wrong.

In addition, these portraits have been exposed to the wind and sun, and have not been changed for a long time, so they have faded so badly that they can hardly be seen clearly. But Fagin knew that these portraits were still very useful, at least for those old policemen. Relying on these portraits that look a little like everyone, but also a little different, they can arbitrarily pick out those people who don’t take the VIP channel to board the ship (most of these people have no background and are easy to bully) , and then said: "You look like Fagin. We will take you back to investigate."

At this time, people who are a bit sensible will directly take out money and bribe the policeman, and then he will naturally not look like Fagin; In the end, it always makes him realize, doesn't it? Therefore, drawing a portrait of a criminal on a wanted warrant is a technical job, and the most important point is that the picture must be similar to everyone, and also have something different from everyone.

But if you walk through the VIP passage, you will never have such troubles. You know, the people who come here are all people with heads and faces. If the police in the United Kingdom are as fierce as Bit Tozos when dealing with the poor (of course, these two varieties do not exist yet); When facing the "decent people" here, he is as docile as a pug. Even compared to pugs, they are more docile and more humane.

It was also the first time that Fagin was waiting to board a ship in the waiting room of the so-called "respectable people". He looked around and felt that he was out of place with the atmosphere here. Most of the passengers here are followed by servants. They are sitting on the sofa now, and their every move is served by servants. As for Fagin, he was dragging a big suitcase (this slightly more decent suitcase and the more decent clothes on his body were given to him by Jacques Gorlen.), and the so-called " nasty" smell.

Those "respectable people" in the waiting room just glanced at him and saw his thick hands, his red, wrinkled, rough face like sandpaper, and his decent clothes, Immediately made such a judgment: nouveau riche.

However, although most "decent people" have a sense of superiority from the bottom of their hearts when facing "upstarts", they also know that it is not wise to expose this sense of superiority. It is not without reason that most "upstarts" can become "upstarts". Apart from luck, these people are able to explode. All of them are guys with outstanding abilities. It is not wise to rashly offend them when there is no conflict of interest.

Because of this reason, although Fei Jin looked like an old hat, the stories of pretending to be aggressive and slapping the face that the broad masses of the people loved did not happen.

Fagin looked around for a place to sit down. He suddenly saw, not far from the fireplace, a young man dressed similarly to those ordinary people, who was even more incompatible with this luxurious waiting room than him, was sitting there alone.

Probably because he didn't like the poor smell of that man, so other decent people sat far away from him. But that was just what Fagin wanted, and he went up to the young man and said, "May I sit here?"

The young man showed a simple and honest smile, and replied in non-standard English: "Of course."

Fagin then sat down by the young man's side, and chatted with him.

"My name is Kolya. I'm from London. I'm going to visit Paris. Judging from your accent, you don't seem to be British?" Fagin said, holding out his hand to the man.

"Grandet, I'm French." The man also reached out to shake Fagin's hand, and Fagin noticed that the man's hands were covered with calluses.

"Look at these hands, it looks like a craftsman."

Thinking of this, Fagin continued to chat with the young man. Soon, he found out that this Frenchman named Grandet was a businessman who made a fortune during the French Revolution, and now he just made a big deal in England, and was about to return home by boat.

"The ferry tickets are really expensive nowadays." Grandet said, "The price of a ticket is worth as much as my monthly income before. If it is not because the company buys the ticket, but I have to pay for it myself I wouldn't buy it if I were killed. Well, Mr. Kolya, what are you going to do in France?"

"Go to Paris first, and see what chances of getting rich there are," replied Fagin. He can’t tell people, I’ll go to Paris first to see if the revolution has benefited the common people, then go to Toulon, learn the theory and techniques of rebellion, and then go to Ireland, combine theory with practice, and then come back...

After hearing this, the respectable people around would probably go to the police immediately, and the police would arrest him with the highest efficiency.

When he told everyone that what he was going to do in the future might be a matter of losing his head, Buck said disapprovingly, "Who here has never done something like losing his head?"

Fagin replied at the time: "It's different." But he didn't expand on what was different. Fagin knew that if he was caught by the police now, he would definitely lose his head, but the police would not spend too much effort to catch him. Of course it would be good if he could be caught, but it didn't matter if he couldn't be caught. But once on that road, the entire police system will regard him as an enemy that must be caught. The police in London are not all idiots. They couldn't catch him before. Many times, it was just because the police felt that it was not an urgent matter to catch him.

But his answer made Grandet excited. Grandet told him that because of the low price of British textiles, there is quite a market in France, and some French products, such as red wine, are also very popular in the UK. He himself is from Saumer, and Saumer also produces red wine, which is of good quality. Not at all worse than the Bordeaux area. As long as the Bordeaux logo is attached, even the French will not be able to taste the difference.

"If Mr. Kolia is interested in the wine business, you can contact me when you arrive in France." Grandet also left a mailing address for Fagin.

At this time, the time for sailing is approaching, and the distinguished guests are always the first to board. Fagin boarded the ship together with Grandet. It just so happened that their box was also in the adjoining position.

This naturally gave Grandet the opportunity to continue to sell various products to Fagin. During the conversation, he gradually discovered that this Mr. Kolya was neither familiar with wine nor seemed to care much about it, but he was very interested in all kinds of wine. I am very interested in weapons and knives. So he told Fei Jin that he knew quite a few arms dealers, and he could help him contact them...

It was not far from England to France, and the ship docked at Calais two days later. Grandet and Fagin bid farewell, and got on the mail coach to Lorraine. Before leaving, he kept telling Fei Jin that if he wanted to do any business, he must not forget him.

Fagin also boarded a mail coach bound for Paris, and was somewhat relieved to be able to get rid of Grandet at last.

It was still winter, and the fields were deserted, as the mail coach was running on the roads of France. Generally speaking, at this time, it is a rare leisure time for farmers in a year, when they have nothing to do. They usually just stay in their house, waiting for the winter to pass. It should be very quiet in the wilderness at this time.

But on the way of the mail car running, Fagin saw a large group of farmers busy in the fields more than once.

"What are they doing?" Fagin asked the others in the mail car, in his poor French.

"I'm digging a canal." A man who looked like a businessman replied, "This is a member of the Veteran's Association, leading the villagers to dig a canal while they have nothing to do now."

"Ah, do you have to work so hard in winter?" Fei Jin asked.

"It's hard work, but it's worth it." The businessman replied, "It is said that those people in the Veterans Association have access to buy electric water pumps. So they only need to dig the ditches in winter and wait until the wheat needs to be watered." At that time, as soon as the electric water pump was turned on, large areas of wheat fields were watered. This summer, some rural areas in some places have already used this device, and as a result, the output of those wheat has increased by a large margin. I heard It is said that the peasants in those places have already eaten their own white bread."

"The life of farmers is really much better now." Another person interjected, "Now there are no nobles, although the country's tax revenue is much higher than that of the kingdom in name. But because there is no land rent for the nobles, In fact, there are still a lot more left to the farmers than before. In addition to pumping machines, and the Veterans Association also specially invites experts to teach technology. Well, speaking of it, after the revolution, the lives of these farmers have really improved. "

"And what of the poor in French towns?" Fagin continued.

"In the city? Poor people work just as hard. Or maybe it's harder than before. Although it's not as good as it was before the revolution, it's still bread to eat. Well, you can go and see for yourself when you get to Paris." replied the businessman.