en alike, rushed in disorder toward the
well. One of the workman's brats was at that moment coming out of it,
fastened by his belt to the hook at the end of the rope; and the three
other urchins were drawing him up by turning the handle. More active
than the rest, the corporal flung himself upon him; and forthwith the
footman and the fat gentleman seized hold of him also, while the beggars
and the lean sisters came to blows with the workman and his family.

In a few seconds the little boy had not a stitch left on him beyond his
shirt. The footman, who had taken possession of the rest of the clothes,
ran away, pursued by the corporal, who snatched away the boy's breeches,
which were next torn from the corporal by one of the lean sisters.

"They are mad!" I muttered, feeling absolutely at sea.

"Not at all, not at all," said Lupin.

"What! Do you mean to say that you can make head or tail of what is
going on?"

He did not reply. The young lady with the little dog, tucking her pet
under her arm, had started running after the child in the shirt, who
uttered loud yells. The two of them raced round the laurel-clump in
which we stood hidden; and the brat flung himself into his mother's
arms.

At long last, Louise d'Ernemont, who had played a conciliatory part from
the beginning, succeeded in allaying the tumult. Everybody sat down
again; but there was a reaction in all those exasperated people and they
remained motionless and silent, as though worn out with their exertions.

And time went by. Losing patience and beginning to feel the pangs of
hunger, I went to the Rue Raynouard to fetch something to eat, which we
divided while watching the actors in the incomprehensible comedy that
was being performed before our eyes. They hardly stirred. Each minute
that passed seemed to load them with increasing melancholy; and they
sank into attitudes of discouragement, bent their backs more and more
and sat absorbed in their meditations.

The afternoon wore on in this way, under a grey sky that shed a dreary
light over the enclosure.

"Are they going to spend the night here?" I asked, in a bored voice.

But, at five o'clock or so, the fat gentleman in the soiled jacket-suit
took out his watch. The others did the same and all, watch in hand,
seemed to be anxiously awaiting an event of no little importance to
themselves. The event did not take place, for, in fifteen or twenty
minutes, the fat gentleman gave a gesture of despair, s