All the world pressed forward to inspect the _limace_. There were some who even had the hardihood to touch the creature with little sticks. “Hold, hold, my infant! _Faut pas la toucher!_ Perhaps it is a poisonous one, _hein_? Demand of thy papa whether it is envenomed.” By now, quite a little crowd had gathered. One would say, amateurs in _limaçonnerie_! Papa, not knowing in the least whether it was envenomed or otherwise, preferred not to make any statement before the other Parisians, who, if the truth were discovered, were no better informed than he himself as to the nature of the thing there. Strange as it may seem, those Parisians were really less wise about the _limace_ than you and I are, to-day! For not one of them really knew that all of them were looking at a _limace_. But they one and all wanted to talk about it, solo, fugue, and chorus; and they did not know how best to mention it. Now it is absurd to keep on calling a thing _la chose_. So at last some one asked aloud, as all had been asking within, “What is it that that is, that that?” Ah, if only M. J. Henri Fabre had been there, M. Fabre, the “insects’ Homer”! But M. Fabre was far away, and no one answered for him. There was a pause. Parisians hate a pause. The day had begun so joyous, and there they all were, pausing. Insupportable! A pretty lady with a primrose-colored parasol said that if it were a serpent, now, she would be able to tell you. She felt herself something of a connoisseur in serpents; there had been a serpent at the last _pique-nique_ she had attended. The gentleman on whose arm she was leaning said, with emotion, “Ah, I can well believe that, Mademoiselle!” Then everybody laughed a merry “_Hé, hé!_” But all this graceful _badinage_ brought them no nearer to knowledge. Hence those who really thirsted for knowledge were glad when the white-capped grandmother Petitpot, with proud beady eyes, pushed forward pale little Pierre with his bulging forehead. In fine, our Pierre, a child well instructed, could inform those ladies. Appalling yet entrancing moment for black-aproned Pierre! He clasped his thin little Atlas of the World against his stomach, and silently prayed for knowledge to descend upon him from on high. Then he looked earnestly down on the _limace_, to put himself _en rapport_ with the creature in her underworld life. A touch of rose pink bloomed a moment on his sallow cheek. “I think,” he said, in his eager fluty voice of a born “teacher’s favorite,” “I think, yes, I believe well!—_c’est une taupe_.” The very utterance of his faith created in him a faith more abundant. He nodded his head sagely, even boldly. “_Ah, oui, Madame, sans doute, c’est une taupe._”