"Yes; and in the evening the beautiful fireworks they let off, Francois?" "And the fat cripple was not stingy, either. He gave me ten sous for myself. He drank nothing but our best wine, and they had chickens at every meal. He spent full eighty francs." "So much as that, Francois?" "Oh, yes!" "How rich he must be!" "Not at all. What he spent was money he had gained in prison, from which he had just come." "Gained all that money in prison?" "Yes; he said he had seven hundred francs beside, and that, when that was all gone, he should try another good 'job;' and if he were taken, he didn't care, because he should go back to his jolly 'pals in the Stone Jug,' as he said." "Then he wasn't afraid of prison, Francois?" "On the contrary; he told Calabash that they were a party of friends and merrymakers all together; and that he had never had a better bed and better food than when he was in prison. Good meat four times a week, fire all the winter, and a lump of money when he left it; whilst there are fools of honest workmen who are starving with cold and hunger, for want of work." "Are you sure he said that, Francois,--the stout lame man?" "I heard him, for I was rowing him in the punt whilst he told his story to Calabash and the two women, who said that it was the same thing in the female prisons they had just left." "But then, Francois, it can't be so bad to steal, if people are so well off in prison." "Oh, the deuce! I don't know. Here it is only Brother Martial who says it is wrong to steal; perhaps he is wrong." "Never mind if he is, Francois. We ought to believe him, for he loves us so much!" "Yes, he loves us; and, when he is by, there is no fear of our being beaten. If he had been here this evening, our mother would not have thrashed me so. An old beast! How savage she is! Oh, how I hate her--hate her! And how I wish I was grown up, that I might pay her back the thumps she gives us, especially to you, who can't bear them as well as I can." "Oh, Francois, hold your tongue; it quite frightens me to hear you say that you would beat mother!" cried the poor little child, weeping, and throwing her arms around her brother's neck, and kissing him affectionately. "It's quite true, though," answered Francois, extricating himself gently from Amandine. "Why are my mother and Calabash always so savage to us?" "I do not know," replied Amandine, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "It is, perhaps, because they sent Brother Ambroise to the galleys, and guillotined our father, that they are unjust towards us." "Is that our fault?" "Oh, no! But what would you have?" "_Ma foi!_ If I am always to have beatings,--always, always, at last I should rather steal, as they do, I should. What do I gain by not being a thief?" "Ah, what would Martial say to that?"