They did. But Jehan remained mute. "Twist his arm!" said the last speaker. "He will soon tell you. Or stick your finger in his eye again! Blest if I don't think the kid _is_ dumb!" the man continued, gazing with astonishment at the boy's dull face and lack-lustre eyes. "I think I shall find a tongue for him," the former operator replied with a leer. "Here, sonny, answer before you are hurt, will you? Where do you live?" But Jehan remained silent. The ruffian raised his hand. In another moment it would have fallen, but in the nick of time came an interruption. "Nom de ma mère!" someone close at hand cried, in a voice of astonishment. "It is my Jehan!" Two of the party in possession turned savagely on the intruder--a middle-sized man with foxy eyes, and a half-starved ape on his shoulder. "Who asked you to speak?" snarled one. "Begone about your business, my fine fellow, or I shall be making a hole in you!" cried another. "But he is my boy!" the new-comer answered, fairly trembling with joy and astonishment. "He is my boy!" "Your boy?" cried Bec de Lièvre, in a tone of contempt. "You look like it, don't you? You look as if you dined on gold plate every day and had a Rohan to your cup-bearer, you do! Go along, man; don't try to bamboozle us, or it will be the worse for you!" And with an angry scowl he turned to his victim. But the showman, though he was a coward, was not to be put down so easily. "It is the boy who is bamboozling you!" he said. "You take him for a swell! It is only his show dress he has on. He is a tumbler's boy, I tell you. He circled the pole with me for two years. Last November he ran away. If you do not believe me, ask the monkey. See, the monkey knows him." Bec de Lièvre had to acknowledge that the monkey did know him. For the poor beast was no sooner brought close to its old playmate than it sprang upon him and covered him with caresses, gibbering and crying out the while after so human a fashion that it might well have moved hearts less hard. The boy did not return its endearments, however; but a look of intelligence came into his eyes, and on a sudden he heaved a sigh as if his heart was breaking. The men who had taken possession of him looked at one another. "It was the boy's cursed clothes fooled us," Bec de Lièvre growled savagely. "We will have them, at any rate. Strip him and have done with it. And do you keep off, Master Tumbler, or we will tumble you." But when the showman, who was trembling with delight and anticipation, made them understand that he would give a crown for the boy as he was in his clothes--"and that is more than the fence will give you," he added--they began to see reason. True, they stood out for a while for a higher price; but the bargain was eventually struck at a crown and a livre, and the boy handed over.