“Monsieur,” replied the abbe, “my bishop sent me here as if on a mission to savages; but, as I had the honor of telling him, the savages of France cannot be reached. They make it a law unto themselves not to listen to us; whereas the church does get some hold on the savages of America.” “M’sieur le cure, they do help me a bit now,” remarked Mouche; “but if I went to your church they _wouldn’t_, and the other folks would make game of my breeches.” “Religion ought to begin by giving him trousers, my dear abbe,” said Blondet. “In your foreign missions don’t you begin by coaxing the savages?” “He would soon sell them,” answered the abbe, in a low tone; “besides, my salary does not enable me to begin on that line.” “Monsieur le cure is right,” said the general, looking at Mouche. The policy of the little scamp was to appear not to hear what they were saying when it was against himself. “The boy is intelligent enough to know good from evil,” continued the count, “and he is old enough to work; yet he thinks of nothing but how to commit evil without being found out. All the keepers know him. He is very well aware that the master of an estate may witness a trespass on his property and yet have no right to arrest the trespasser. I have known him keep his cows boldly in my meadows, though he knew I saw him; but now, ever since I have been mayor, he runs away fast enough.” “Oh, that is very wrong,” said the countess; “you should not take other people’s things, my little man.” “Madame, we must eat. My grandpa gives me more slaps than food, and they don’t fill my stomach, slaps don’t. When the cows come in I milk ‘em just a little and I live on that. Monseigneur isn’t so poor but what he’ll let me drink a drop o’ milk the cows get from his grass?” “Perhaps he hasn’t eaten anything to-day,” said the countess, touched by his misery. “Give him some bread and the rest of that chicken; let him have his breakfast,” she added, looking at the footman. “Where do you sleep, my child?” “Anywhere, madame; under the stars in summer, and wherever they’ll let us in winter.” “How old are you?” “Twelve.” “There is still time to bring him up to better ways,” said the countess to her husband. “He will make a good soldier,” said the general, gruffly; “he is well toughened. I went through that kind of thing myself, and here I am.” “Excuse me, general, I don’t belong to nobody,” said the boy. “I can’t be drafted. My poor mother wasn’t married, and I was born in a field. I’m a son of the ‘airth,’ as grandpa says. M’ma saved me from the army, that she did! My name ain’t no more Mouche than nothing at all. Grandpa keeps telling me all my advantages. I’m not on the register, and when I’m old enough to be drafted I can go all over France and they can’t take me.” “Are you fond of your grandfather?” said the countess, trying to look into the child’s heart.