"A big lame man?" "Why, yes; who came here at the end of the autumn from Pere Micou, with a man with monkeys, and two women." "Oh, yes, yes; the lame man who spent so much money?" "I think so; he paid for everybody." "Do you recollect the excursion on the water?" [Illustration: THE BRIGAND'S ATTACK ON HIS BROTHER] "I went with them, and the man with the monkeys took his organ on board to have some music in the boat." "And then, at night, what fine fireworks they had, Francois!" "Yes; and he was no miser: he gave me ten sous! He drank nothing but sealed wine; they had chickens at all their meals; they had at least eighty francs' worth." "As much as that, Francois?" "Oh, yes." "He was very rich, then?" "Not at all; what he spent was the money which he earned in prison, from whence he had just come." "He gained all that money in prison?" "Yes; he said he had seven hundred francs left; that when all was gone, he would do some good job, and if they took him, he didn't care, because he would return to the prison and join his good friends there." "He wasn't afraid of the prison, then, Francois?". "Just the contrary; he told Calabash that they were all jolly together; that he never had a better bed or better food than in prison: good meat four times a week, fire all winter, and a good sum when he came out, while there are so many stupid fools of honest workmen who were starving for want of work." "Did the lame man say that?" "I heard him; for I was rowing in the boat while he told this to Calabash and the two women, who said it was the same thing in the prison for women; they had just come out." "But, then, Francois, it can't be so wicked to steal, if one is so well off in prison?" "I don't know; here, there is no one but brother Martial who says it is wrong to steal, perhaps he is mistaken." "Never mind, we must believe him, Francois; he loves us so much!" "He loves us, it is true! when he is here no one dares to beat us. If he had been here to-night, mother wouldn't have whipped me. Old beast! ain't she wicked? Oh! I hate her--hate her. How I wish I was a man, to pay her back all the blows she has given me, and you, who can't bear it as well as I can." "Oh! Francois, hush, you make me afraid, to hear you say that you would like to strike mother!" cried the poor little thing, weeping, and throwing her arms around the neck of her brother, whom she embraced tenderly. "No, it is true," answered Francois, repulsing his sister gently; "why are mother and Calabash always so severe and cross to us?" "I do not know," said Amandine, wiping her eyes; "it is, perhaps, because they guillotined father and sent Ambrose to the galleys." "Is that our fault?" "No; but--" "If I am always to receive blows in the end, I would rather steal, as they wish me to; what good does it do me not to steal?" "And what would Martial say?"