the pastries with
willing white teeth, and Moufflou did no less. Then they got up to go,
and the sick child on the couch burst into fretful lamentations and
outcries.

"I want the dog! I will have the dog!" was all he kept repeating.

But Lolo did not know what he said, and was only sorry to see him so
unhappy.

"You shall have the dog to-morrow," said the gentleman, to pacify his
little son; and he hurried Lolo and Moufflou out of the room, and
consigned them to a servant, having given Lolo five francs this time.

"Why, Moufflou," said Lolo, with a chuckle of delight, "if we could find
a foreigner every day, we could eat meat at supper, Moufflou, and go to
the theatre every evening?"

And he and his crutch clattered home with great eagerness and
excitement, and Moufflou trotted on his four frilled feet, the blue bow
with which Bice had tied up his curls on the top of his head, fluttering
in the wind. But, alas! even his five francs could bring no comfort at
home. He found his whole family wailing and mourning in utterly
inconsolable distress.

Tasso had drawn his number that morning, and the number was seven, and
he must go and be a conscript for three years.

The poor young man stood in the midst of his weeping brothers and
sisters, with his mother leaning against his shoulder, and down his own
brown cheeks the tears were falling. He must go, and lose his place in
the public gardens, and leave his people to starve as they might, and be
put in a tomfool's jacket, and drafted off among cursing and swearing
and strange faces, friendless, homeless, miserable! And the
mother,--what would become of the mother?

Tasso was the best of lads and the mildest. He was quite happy sweeping
up the leaves in the long alleys of the Cascine, or mowing the green
lawns under the ilex avenues, and coming home at supper-time, among the
merry little people and the good woman that he loved. He was quite
contented; he wanted nothing, only to be let alone; and they would not
let him alone. They would haul him away to put a heavy musket in his
hand and a heavy knapsack on his back, and drill him, and curse him, and
make him into a human target, a live popinjay.

No one had any heed for Lolo and his five francs, and Moufflou,
understanding that some great sorrow had fallen on his friends, sat down
and lifted up his voice and howled.

Tasso must go away!--that was all they understood. For three long years
they must go without the si