"Ah, yes, Chourineur; but I never tasted them. It was my ambition, and my ambition ruined me. One day, returning from Montfauçon, some little boys beat me and stole my basket. I came back, well knowing what was in store for me; and I had a shower of thumps and no bread. In the evening, before going to the bridge, the Chouette, savage because I had not brought in anything the evening before, instead of beating me as usual to make me cry, made me bleed by pulling my hair from the sides of the temples, where it is most tender." "_Tonnerre!_ that was coming it too strong," said the bandit, striking his fist heavily on the table, and frowning sternly. "To beat a child is no such great thing, but to ill-use one so--Heaven and earth!" Rodolph had listened attentively to the recital of Fleur-de-Marie, and now looked at the Chourineur with astonishment: the display of such feeling quite surprised him. "What ails you, Chourineur?" he inquired. "What ails me? Ails me? Why, have you no feeling? That devil's dam of a Chouette who so brutally used this girl! Are you as hard as your own fists?" "Go on, my girl," said Rodolph to Fleur-de-Marie, without appearing to notice the Chourineur's appeal. "I have told you how the Chouette ill-used me to make me cry. I was then sent on to the bridge with my barley-sugar. The one-eyed was at her usual spot, and from time to time shook her doubled fist at me. However, as I had not broken my fast since the night before, and as I was very hungry, at the risk of putting the Chouette in a passion, I took a piece of barley-sugar, and began to eat it." "Well done, girl!" "I ate another piece--" "Bravo! go it, my hearties!" "I found it so good, not from daintiness, but real hunger. But then a woman, who sold oranges, cried out to the one-eyed woman, 'Look ye there, Chouette; Pegriotte is eating the barley-sugar!'" "Oh, thunder and lightning!" said the Chourineur; "that would enrage her,--make her in a passion! Poor little mouse, what a fright you were in when the Chouette saw you!--eh?" "How did you get out of that affair, poor Goualeuse?" asked Rodolph, with as much interest as the Chourineur. "Why, it was a serious matter to me,--but that was afterwards; for the Chouette, although boiling over with rage at seeing me devour the barley-sugar, could not leave her stove, for the fish was frying." "Ha! ha! ha! True, true,--that was a difficult position for her," said the Chourineur, laughing heartily.