the establishment; but there was one point at which everything went to
pieces. This artificial nursing, so belauded in the prospectus, did not
agree with the children. It was a strange obstinacy, as if they
conspired together with a glance, the poor little creatures, for they
were too young to speak--most of them were destined never to speak--"If
you say so, we won't suck the goats." And they did not, they preferred
to die one after another rather than to suck them. Was Jesus of
Bethlehem nursed by a goat in his stable? Did he not, on the contrary,
nestle against a woman's breast, soft and full, on which he fell asleep
when his thirst was satisfied? Who ever saw a goat among the legendary
oxen and asses on that night when the beasts spoke? In that case, why
lie, why call it Bethlehem?

The manager was touched at first by so many deaths. This Pondevez, a
waif and estray of the life of the Quarter, a twentieth year student
well known in all the fruit-shops of Boulevard Saint-Michel under the
name of Pompon, was not a bad man. When he realized the failure of
artificial nursing, he simply hired four or five buxom nurses in the
neighborhood, and nothing more was needed to revive the children's
appetites. That humane impulse was near costing him his place.

"Nurses at Bethlehem," said Jenkins in a rage, when he came to pay his
weekly visit. "Are you mad? Upon my word! why the goats then, and the
lawns to feed them, and my idea, and the pamphlets about my idea? What
becomes of all these? Why, you're going against my system, you're
stealing the founder's money."

"But, my dear master," the student tried to reply, passing his hands
through his long red beard, "but--as they don't like that food--"

"Very well! let them go hungry, but let the principle of artificial
nursing be respected. Everything depends on that. I don't wish to have
to tell you so again. Send away those horrible nurses. For bringing up
our children we have goat's milk and cow's milk in a great emergency;
but I can't concede anything beyond that."

He added, with his apostolic air:

"We are here to demonstrate a grand philanthropic idea. It must
triumph, even at the cost of some sacrifices. Look to it."

Pondevez did not insist. After all, it was a good place, near enough to
Paris to permit descents upon Nanterre from the Quarter on Sunday, or a
visit by the manager to his favorite breweries. Madame Polge--whom
Jenkins always called "our intelligent overs