'Didn't I forbid you to come here again, you young vulture? Your parents ought to be ashamed of themselves for sending you here, for they are quite able to feed you, whereas there are so many others who are dying of hunger.' Houtelard's son, an overgrown lad of fifteen, with a timid and sad expression, began to cry. 'They beat me if I don't come,' he said. 'The missis got hold of the rope and father drove me out.' He turned up his sleeve to show a big violet bruise on his arm which had been caused by a blow from a piece of knotted rope. The 'missis' was the old servant whom the lad's father had married, and who was gradually killing the boy by her ill-treatment. Since the loss of their house, their harshness and miserly filthiness had increased, and now their home was a perfect pigsty, where they tortured the lad, as if to revenge themselves for their misfortunes on him. 'Put an arnica compress on his arm,' said Pauline softly to Lazare. Then she herself gave the lad a five-franc piece. 'Here! give them this so that they shan't beat you any more, and tell them that if they strike you again, and if there are any bruises on your body next Saturday, they will never get another sou out of me.' All along the bench the other children, cheered by the warming blaze, were now tittering and digging each other in the ribs with their elbows. One tiny little thing had stolen a carrot and was munching it furtively. 'Come here, Cuche!' said Pauline. 'Have you told your mother that I hope to get her admitted very soon into the Hospital for Incurables at Bayeux?' Cuche's wife, a miserable abandoned woman, had broken her leg in July, and had remained infirm ever since. 'Yes, I told her,' the lad replied in a hoarse voice; 'but she says she won't go.' He had grown into a strong young fellow, and was now nearly seventeen years old. With his hands hanging at his sides, he swayed about in an awkward manner. 'What! She won't go!' cried Lazare. 'And you won't come, either; for I told you to come up this week and help a little in the garden, and I'm still waiting for you.' The lad still swayed himself about. 'I haven't had any time,' he replied. At this Pauline, seeing her cousin about to lose his temper, interposed and said to the lad: 'Sit down again now, and we will speak about it presently. Just reflect a little or you will make me angry too.' It was next the turn of the Gonins' little girl. She was thirteen years old, and still had a pretty rosy face beneath a mop of fair hair. Without waiting to be questioned, she poured out a flood of prattle, telling them how her father's paralysis was ascending to his arms and even his tongue, and that he could now only grunt like an animal. Cousin Cuche, the sailor who had deserted his wife and installed himself in Gonin's house, had made a violent attack upon the old man that very morning, in the hope of finishing him off.