Pierrot hid the guilty hand behind his back, twisting his shoulders this way and that, as children of all ranks do when they are crossed. "Don't be angry, Louis," said Madame la Princesse to her son, whose features were disfigured by an ugly grimace. "If Pierrot touches your suit again, he shall be whipped." Pierrot changed his sulky expression for a threatening one. "Monseigneur's a prince," he said, "but I'm a gardener; and if monseigneur is to keep me from touching his clothes, I won't let him play with my Guinea hens. Ah! I'm stronger than monseigneur, and he knows it." These imprudent words were no sooner out of Pierrot's mouth, than the prince's nurse, who was Pierrot's mother, seized the independent youngster by the wrist, and said:-- "Pierrot, you forget that monseigneur is your master, the master of everything in the château and around the château, and so your Guinea hens are his." "Why, I thought he was my brother," said Pierrot. "Your foster-brother, yes." "If he's my brother, we ought to share; and if my Guinea hens are his, his clothes are mine." The nurse was about to reply by a demonstration of the difference between a uterine brother and a foster-brother, but the young prince, who wished Pierrot to witness his triumph from beginning to end, because he was especially desirous to excite Pierrot's admiration and envy, did not give her time. "Don't be afraid, Pierrot," said he; "I am not angry with you, and you shall see me in a little while on my fine white horse, and my nice little saddle! I am going to hunt, and I shall kill the stag!" "Oh! yes," retorted the irreverent Pierrot, "you'll stay a long while on horseback! You wanted to ride my donkey the other day, and my donkey threw you off on to the ground!" "Yes, but to-day," rejoined the prince, with all the majesty he could summon to his assistance and find in his memory,--"to-day I represent my papa, and I shall not fall. Besides, Vialas will hold me in his arms." "Come, come," said Madame la Princesse, to cut short the discussion between the children, "come and dress the prince! One o'clock is striking, and all our friends are waiting impatiently. Lenet, bid them give the signal for departure." XIV.