The unfortunate man's reason was fast giving way under the many shocks he had received. "Morel," cried Madeleine, "give me my child! I will have her!" "To be sure," replied the lapidary; "that is only fair. Everybody ought to secure their own happiness!" So saying, he laid the child in its mother's arms, and uttering a groan, such as comes only from a breaking heart, he covered his face with his hands; while Madeleine, almost as frenzied as her husband, placed the body of her child amid the straw of her wretched bed, watching it with frantic jealousy, while the other children, kneeling around her, filled the air with their wailings. The bailiffs, who had experienced a temporary feeling of compassion at the death of the child, soon fell back into their accustomed brutality. "I say, friend," said Malicorne to the lapidary, "your child is dead, and there's an end of it! I dare say you think it a misfortune; but then, you see, we are all mortal, and neither we nor you can bring it back to life. So come along with us; for, to tell you the truth, we're upon the scent of a spicy one we must nab to-day. So don't delay us, that's a trump!" But Morel heard not a word he said. Entirely preoccupied with his own sad thoughts, the bewildered man kept up a kind of wandering delivery of his own afflicting ideas. "My poor Adèle!" murmured he; "we must now see about laying you in the grave, and watching by her little corpse till the people come to carry it to its last home,--to lay it in the ground. But how are we to do that without a coffin,--and where shall we get one? Who will give me credit for one? Oh, a very small coffin will do,--only for a little creature of four years of age! And we shall want no bearers! Oh, no, I can carry it under my arm. Ha! ha! ha!" added he, with a burst of frightful mirth; "what a good thing it is she did not live to be as old as Louise! I never could have persuaded anybody to trust me for a coffin large enough for a girl of eighteen years of age." "I say, just look at that chap!" said Bourdin to Malicorne. "I'll be dashed if I don't think as he's a-going mad, like the old woman there! Only see how he rolls his eyes about,--enough to frighten one! Come, I say, let's make haste and be off. Only hark, how that idiot creature is a-roaring for something to eat! Well, they are rum customers, from beginning to end!" "We must get done with them as soon as we can. Although the law only allows us seventy-six francs, seventy-five centièmes, for arresting this beggar, yet, in justice to ourselves, we must swell the costs to two hundred and forty or two hundred and fifty francs. You know the sufferer (the creditor) pays us!" "You mean, advances the cash. Old Gaffer there will have to pay the piper, since he must dance to the music." "Well, by the time he has paid his creditor 2,500 francs for debt, interest, and expenses, etc., he'll find it pretty warm work."