"But you know well enough that I don't complain as long as I can help it; I bear it as long as I can." "Well, we'll let you alone, if you will tell us why you call yourself Mont Saint-Jean." "Yes, yes; come, tell us all that directly." "Why, I've told you a hundred times. It was an old soldier that I loved a long while ago, and who was called so because he was wounded at the battle of Mont Saint-Jean; so I took his name. That's it; now are you satisfied? You will make me repeat the same thing over, and over, and over!" "If your soldier was like you, he was a beauty!" "I suppose he was in the Invalids?" "The remains of a man--" "How many glass eyes had he?" "And wasn't his nose of block tin?" "He must have been short of two arms and two legs, besides being deaf and blind, if he took up with you." "I am ugly,--a monster, I know that as well as you can tell me. Say what you like,--make game of me, if you choose, it's all one to me; only don't beat me, that's all, I beg!" "What have you got in that old handkerchief?" asked La Louve. "Yes, yes! What is it?" "Show it up directly!" "Let's see! Let's see!" "Oh, no, I beg!" exclaimed the miserable creature, squeezing up the little bundle in her hands with all her might. "What! Must we take it from you?" "Yes, snatch it from her, La Louve!" "Oh, you won't be so wicked? Let it go! Let it go, I say!" "What is it?" "Why, it's the beginning of my baby linen; I make it with the old bits of linen which no one wants, and I pick up. It's nothing to you, is it?" "Oh, the baby linen of Mont Saint-Jean's little one! That must be a rum set out!" "Let's look at it." "The baby clothes! The baby clothes!" "She has taken measure of the keeper's little dog, no doubt." "Here's your baby clothes," cried La Louve, snatching the bundle from Mont Saint-Jean's grasp. The handkerchief, already torn, was now rent to tatters, and a quantity of fragments of stuff of all colours, and old pieces of linen half cut out, flew around the yard, and were trampled under feet by the prisoners, who holloaed and laughed louder than before. "Here's your rags!" "Why, it is a ragpicker's bag." "Patterns from the ragman's." "What a shop!" "And to sew all that rubbish!" "Why, there's more thread than stuff." "What nice embroidery!" "Here, pick up your rags and tatters, Mont Saint-Jean."