Pretty-Heart could have easily made the jump, but I was never sure of him. Once on board he might do some tricks that certainly would not be to the lady's taste. "Is he spiteful?" she asked. "No, madam, but he is not always obedient, and I am afraid that he will not behave himself." "Well, bring him on yourself." She signed to a man who stood near the rail. He came forward and threw a plank across to the bank. With my harp on my shoulder and Pretty-Heart in my arms I stepped up the plank. "The monkey! the monkey!" cried the little boy, whom the lady addressed as Arthur. I went up to him and, while he stroked and petted Pretty-Heart, I watched him. He was strapped to a board. "Have you a father, my child?" asked the lady. "Yes, but I am alone just now." "For long?" "For two months." "Two months! Oh, poor little boy. At your age how is it that you happen to be left all alone?" "It has to be, madam." "Does your father make you take him a sum of money at the end of two months? Is that it?" "No, madam, he does not force me to do anything. If I can make enough to live with my animals, that is all." "And do you manage to get enough?" I hesitated before replying. I felt a kind of awe, a reverence for this beautiful lady. Yet she talked to me so kindly and her voice was so sweet, that I decided to tell her the truth. There was no reason why I should not. Then I told her how Vitalis and I had been parted, that he had gone to prison because he had defended me, and how since he had gone I had been unable to make any money. While I was talking, Arthur was playing with the dogs, but he was listening to what I said. "Then how hungry you all must be!" he cried. At this word, which the animals well knew, the dogs began to bark and Pretty-Heart rubbed his stomach vigorously. "Oh, Mamma!" cried Arthur. The lady said a few words in a strange language to a woman, whose head I could see through a half open door. Almost immediately the woman appeared with some food. "Sit down, my child," said the lady. I did so at once. Putting my harp aside I quickly sat down in the chair at the table; the dogs grouped themselves around me. Pretty-Heart jumped on my knee. "Do your dogs eat bread?" asked Arthur. "Do they eat bread!" I gave them a piece which they devoured ravenously. "And the monkey?" said Arthur. But there was no occasion to worry about Pretty-Heart, for while I was serving the dogs he had taken a piece of crust from a meat pie and was almost choking himself underneath the table. I helped myself to the pie and, if I did not choke like Pretty-Heart, I gobbled it up no less gluttonously than he. "Poor, poor child!" said the lady. Arthur said nothing, but he looked at us with wide open eyes, certainly amazed at our appetites, for we were all as famished as one another, even Zerbino, who should have been somewhat appeased by the meat that he had stolen. "What would you have eaten to-night if you had not met us?" asked Arthur.