The room is even more squalid than that recently occupied by them, for, besides a three-legged table, two rickety chairs, a horribly-dilapidated stove and two dirty, ragged pallets at opposite sides of the room, furniture there is none. Perched upon one of the two rickety chairs, his thin legs extended underneath the table and his elbows resting upon it, sits Papa Francoise, lost in the contemplation of a broken glass containing a small quantity of the worst whiskey; and near him, Mamma squats upon the floor before the rusty stove, in which a brisk fire is burning, stirring vigorously at a strong-smelling decoction which is simmering over the coals. "Come, old woman," growls Papa, with a self-assertion probably borrowed from the broken glass under his eye, "get that stuff brewed before the gal comes in. And then try and answer my question: what's to be done with her?" Mamma Francoise stirs the liquid more vigorously, and takes a careful sip from the iron spoon. "Ah," she murmurs, "that's the stuff. It's a pity to spoil it." She rises slowly, and drawing a bottle from her pocket, pours into the basin a few drops of brown liquid, stirs it again, and then removing the decoction from the fire, pours it into a battered cup, which she sets upon the floor at a distance from the stove. If one may judge from Mamma's abstinence, the liquor _has_ been spoiled, for she does not taste it again. Having thus completed her task, she turns toward one of the pallets, and seating herself thereon lifts her eyes toward Papa. "What's to be done with the girl?" she repeats. "That's the question I've asked _you_ often enough, and I never got an answer yet." Papa withdraws his gaze from her face, and fixes it once more upon the broken tumbler. "She ain't no good to us," resumes Mamma, "and we can't have her tied to us always." "Nor we can't turn her adrift," says Papa, significantly. "No; we can't turn her adrift," replies Mamma. "We can't afford to keep her, and we can't afford to let her go." "Consequently--" says Papa. And then they look at one another in silence. "We may have to get out of this place at a minute's warning," resumes Mamma, after a time, "and how can we expect to dodge the cops with that gal tied to us? You and I can alter our looks, but we can't alter hers." "No," says Papa, shaking his head, "we can't alter hers--not now." "And if we could, we can't alter her actions." "No; we can't alter her actions," agrees Papa, with a cunning leer, "except to make 'em worse." And he casts a suggestive glance toward the tin cup on the floor. "It won't do," said Mamma, noting the direction of his glance; "it won't do to increase the drams. If she got worse, we couldn't manage her at all. It won't do to give her any more." "And it won't do to give her any less. Old woman, we've just got back to the place we started from." Mamma Francoise rests her chin in her ample palm and ponders.