"Better come away, madame," said an agent, in a low voice, to the stupefied woman thus assailed. He laughed at her discomfiture. "It is waste kindness and waste time. You can't do anything with that sort of riffraff. It's only a stray cat fed to scratch you. They're a bad lot." The "bad lot" had overheard this police philosophy, and it confirmed her pre-existing opinion of the police. Monsieur le Commissaire was a grave and burly gentleman of middle life, with iron-gray hair and moustache, and eyes that seemed to read their object through and through. He pulled this moustache thoughtfully as he listened to the report of the river police agent, all the time keeping the eyes upon the diminutive but defiant child before him. When he had learned everything,--including the scene in the station,--he said, abruptly,-- "Come in here, my child. Don't be afraid,--nobody's going to hurt you. Yes, bring the dog. Brave dog! Splendid fellow! Come! I'd like to own that dog, now,--I would, indeed!" he observed, as he closed the door of his private office; "but I suppose you wouldn't part with him for the world now, would you?" "N-no. But he isn't mine, monsieur," she replied, regretfully. "No? What a pity! Then perhaps I could buy him, eh?" "I--I don't know. Monsieur Podvin----" She stopped suddenly. But the magistrate was looking abstractedly over her head and did not appear to notice her slip of the tongue. He was thinking. It gave little Fouchette time to recover. He was something like the enthusiastic physician who sees in his patient only "a case,"--something devoid of personality. He recognized in this waif a condition of society to be treated. In his mind she was a wholly irresponsible creature. Not the whole case in question,--oh, no; but a part of the case. What she had been, was now, or would be were questions that did not enter into the consideration. Nothing but the case. Instead of putting the child through a course of questions,--what she anticipated and had steeled herself against,--he merely talked to her on what appeared to be topics foreign to the subject immediately in hand. "You must be taken care of in some way," he declared. "Yes,--a child like you should not be left in the streets of Paris to beg or starve,--and it's against the law to beg----" "But I never begged, monsieur," interrupted the child,--"never!" "Of course not,--of course not! No; you are too proud to beg. That's right. But you couldn't make a living picking rags, and the law doesn't permit a child to pick rags in the streets of Paris." "I never did, monsieur, never!" "Of course not,--you would be arrested. But outside the barriers the work is not lucrative. Charenton, for instance, is not as prolific of rags as it is of rascals." At the mention of Charenton Fouchette started visibly; but her interlocutor did not seem to notice it.