"Well, fifteen sous was a good haul for a little bird like you."

"It was. And then the one-eyed woman seeing that--"

"With her one eye?" said the Chourineur, laughing.

"Of course, because she had but one. Well, then, she finding that when I
cried I got most money, always beat me severely before she put me on the
bridge."

"Brutal, but cunning."

"Well, at last I got hardened to blows; and as the Chouette got in a
passion when I did not cry, why I, to be revenged upon her, the more she
thumped me the more I laughed, although the tears came into my eyes with
the pain."

"But, poor Goualeuse, did not the sticks of barley-sugar make you long
for them?"

"Ah, yes, Chourineur; but I never tasted them. It was my ambition, and
my ambition ruined me. One day, returning from Montfaucon, some little
boys beat me and stole my basket. I came back, well knowing what was in
store for me; and I had a shower of thumps and no bread. In the evening,
before going to the bridge, the Chouette, savage because I had not
brought in anything the evening before, instead of beating me as usual
to make me cry, made me bleed by pulling my hair from the sides of the
temples, where it is most tender."

"_Tonnerre!_ that was coming it too strong," said the bandit, striking
his fist heavily on the table, and frowning sternly. "To beat a child is
no such great thing, but to ill-use one so--Heaven and earth!"

Rodolph had listened attentively to the recital of Fleur-de-Marie, and
now looked at the Chourineur with astonishment: the display of such
feeling quite surprised him.

"What ails you, Chourineur?" he inquired.

"What ails me? Ails me? Why, have you no feeling? That devil's dam of a
Chouette who so brutally used this girl! Are you as hard as your own
fists?"

"Go on, my girl," said Rodolph to Fleur-de-Marie, without appearing to
notice the Chourineur's appeal.

"I have told you how the Chouette ill-used me to make me cry. I was then
sent on to the bridge with my barley-sugar. The one-eyed was at her
usual spot, and from time to time shook her doubled fist at me. However,
as I had not broken my fast since the night before, and as I was very
hungry, at the risk of putting the Chouette in a passion, I took a piece
of barley-sugar, and began to eat it."

"Well done, girl!"

"I ate another piece--"

"Bravo! go it, my hearties!"

"I found it so good, not from daintiness, but real hunger. But then a
woman, who sold oranges, cried