"I'll give thee something to amuse thee, and instruct thee too!" he volunteered one day, and presented his charge with a little concertina. "Now pipe away on that! Thy wolf of a mother can play, and thy dog of an aunt can sing. Thou shalt learn to accompany them! It will be a fine racket!" Louis Charles pushed the instrument away from him. The coarse remarks about his mother and aunt stung him to the quick. "I do not wish it!" he said quietly. Simon was furious! He had taken the trouble to make the little wretch a gift, and it was scorned! "Peste! You shall suffer for this!" he threatened. And suffer the poor child did for many a long day, in consequence of that refusal. Yet no brutality ever induced him to touch the hated instrument. Simon finally gave it up. When he entered under the cobbler's yoke, the little king had worn a suit of black clothes, in memory of his father. Simon's jealous eye was not long in perceiving that the child was fond of these clothes, since his mother had fashioned them. "It's time you left those off!" he announced one day. "I'll have no one about me mourning for old Capet! We'll have a gay little new suit made for you!" Louis begged and pleaded to no avail. A few days after, he was arrayed in a little coat and trousers of the Revolutionary red, and a bright red liberty-cap. The boy donned the suit sadly but without resistance. But when it came to the liberty-cap, nothing would induce him to let it be placed on his head. He fought and struggled wildly against wearing the headdress of his father's murderers. It was only through Madame Simon's interference that the cobbler gave up the contest. "Come, come!" she said. "Let be! Another time perhaps, he will listen to reason!" The child gave her a grateful glance that she never forgot. In addition to his other hardships, the young king was obliged to wait on his two captors, and run at their beck and call like the meanest servant. He performed his tasks without a murmur, and counted himself fortunate if he were not rewarded by a kick, or a cuff on the ear. One morning while it was yet dark, Louis XVII awoke on his hard truckle-bed. All days now were bad enough and sad enough, but he somehow had a presentiment that this one would be worse than the rest. He rose shivering, lighted a little foot-stove, and took it to Madame Simon's bed as he had been directed to do. She scolded him sleepily for not bringing it sooner, and his heart ached as he recalled how he used to lay a bouquet from his garden at Versailles on his mother's bed every morning. Oh, the hideous difference! After his scanty breakfast, he caught the eye of Simon fastened upon him, with some new, malignant interest in its gaze.