This young thief, for the boy had previously been convicted of larceny, was now under arrest charged with stealing a loaf of bread; the thickset woman had the loaf under her arm; she explained to the magistrate that she was a fruit seller and dealt also in soldiers' bread, which she kept at the door of her shop; that the boy crept up to a table on which the bread was, and that another urchin, probably in league with the thief, ran against her and fell almost between her legs; while she helped him get up, his comrade seized a loaf and ran away with it. But she saw him in time; she ran after the little villain and caught him with the stolen loaf still in his possession; so that he could not deny his crime. "Why did you steal this loaf?" the magistrate sternly asked the little thief, who had listened to the fruit seller's declaration as if it did not concern him, drumming on the clerk's desk with his fingers. He swayed from right to left, just like a bear, stuck out his lips, hung his head lower than ever, and at last mumbled something which could not be taken for words. "Why did you steal this bread?" repeated the magistrate, more severely than before. "Come, answer; and speak up so that you can be heard." Thereupon a low, drawling voice replied: "'Cos I was hungry! I ain't had nothing to eat for two days." "That is not true; you haven't the face of one who is starving; at all events, if you were hungry, you should have gone to a baker's shop and asked for bread; you wouldn't have been refused. But we know your ways; you stole this loaf of bread to sell again, and get three or four sous to gamble with on the boulevard or at the barrier; isn't that the truth?" The little fellow again began to sway back and forth. He made a grimace which seemed to be intended for a smile, and said nothing. "Are your parents living?" continued the magistrate. "I dunno." "What! you don't know whether you have a father and mother?" "I ain't got no father, I don't think." "And your mother?" "She sells fried potatoes." "Isn't she able to pay for your apprenticeship to some trade?" "I don't want to work." "You prefer to steal! you hope to be imprisoned with other little rascals of your sort, with whom you will become hopelessly bad. Where does your mother live?" The little vagabond made no reply. The magistrate repeated his question. "I won't tell you; I don't want her to claim me; I won't go back to her!" "Then you will be taken to the préfecture, and from there to a house where you'll have to work." Nothing that the magistrate could say seemed to move the young thief in the slightest degree; but when the secretary took his pen to write the report for the préfecture, the little rascal began to laugh, and muttered: "_V'là le griffon qui prend une voltigeante pour broder sur du mince._"[F]