ecover his calves.

"Papa, are we going to have dinner soon, eh, papa?"

"Yes, it is getting dusk, wait a little."

"But, papa, suppose we don't wait?"

"In twenty minutes, you little glutton."

"Twenty, is twenty a great many? If you eat twenty cutlets would it make
you ill? But with potatoes, and jam, and soup, and--is it still twenty
minutes?"

Then again: "Papa, when there is beef with sauce," he has his mouth full
of it, "red tomato sauce."

"Yes, dear, well?"

"Well, a bullock is much bigger than what is on the dish; why don't they
bring the rest of the bullock? I could eat it all and then some bread
and then some haricots, and then--"

He is insatiable when he has his napkin under his chin, and it is a
happiness to see the pleasure he feels in working his jaws. His little
eyes glisten, his cheeks grow red; what he puts away into his little
stomach it is impossible to say, and so busy is he that he has scarcely
time to laugh between two mouthfuls. Toward dessert his ardor slackens,
his look becomes more and more languid, his fingers relax and his eyes
close from time to time.

"Mamma, I should like to go to bed," he says, rubbing his eyes. Baby is
coming round.

CHAPTER XXXIV. FAMILY TIES

The exhilaration of success and the fever of life's struggle take a man
away from his family, or cause him to live amid it as a stranger, and
soon he no longer finds any attractions in the things which charmed
him at the outset. But let ill luck come, let the cold wind blow rather
strongly, and he falls back upon himself, he seeks near him something to
support him in his weakness, a sentiment to replace his vanished dream,
and he bends toward his child, he takes his wife's hand and presses it.
He seems to invite these two to share his burden. Seeing tears in the
eyes of those he loves, his own seem diminished to that extent. It would
seem that moral suffering has the same effect as physical pain. The
drowning wretch clutches at straws; in the same way, the man whose heart
is breaking clasps his wife and children to him. He asks in turn for
help, protection, and comfort, and it is a touching thing to see the
strong shelter himself in the arms of the weak and recover courage in
their kiss. Children have the instinct of all this; and the liveliest
emotion they are capable of feeling is that which they experience on
seeing their father weep.

Recall, dear reader, your most remote recollections, seek in that pa