hurt me, pray. I have had nothing to eat for
two days, and I've run away from the Chouette, who pulled out my tooth,
and said she would throw me over to the fishes. Not knowing where to
sleep, I was passing before your door, and I slept for the night
amongst these logs, under this heap, not thinking I hurt anybody.'

"'I'm not to be gammoned by you, you little hussy! You came to steal my
logs. Go and call the watch,' said the timber-merchant to his man."

"Ah, the old vagabond! The old reprobate! Call the watch! Why didn't he
send for the artillery?" said the Chourineur. "Steal his logs, and you
only eight years old! What an old ass!"

"'Not true, sir,' his man replied. 'Steal your logs, master! How can she
do that? She is not so big as the smallest piece!' 'You are right,'
replied the timber-merchant; 'but if she does not come for herself, she
does for others. Thieves have a parcel of children, whom they send to
pry about and hide themselves to open the doors of houses. She must be
taken to the commissary, and mind she does not escape.'"

"Upon my life, this timber-merchant was more of a log than any log in
his own yard," said the Chourineur.

"I was taken to the commissary," resumed Goualeuse. "I accused myself of
being a wanderer, and they sent me to prison. I was sent before the
Tribunal, and sentenced, as a rogue and vagabond, to remain until I was
sixteen years of age in a house of correction. I thank the judges much
for their kindness; for in prison I had food, I was not beaten, and it
was a paradise after the cock-loft of the Chouette. Then, in prison I
learned to sew; but, sad to say, I was idle: I preferred singing to
work, and particularly when I saw the sun shine. Ah, when the sun shone
on the walls of the prison I could not help singing; and then, when I
could sing, I seemed no longer to be a prisoner. It was after I began to
sing so much that they called me Goualeuse, instead of Pegriotte. Well,
when I was sixteen, I left the gaol. At the door, I found the ogress
here, and two or three old women, who had come to see my fellow
prisoners, and who had always told me that when I left the prison they
would find work for me."

"Yes, yes, I see," said the Chourineur.

"'My pretty little maid,' said the ogress and her old companions, 'come
and lodge with us; we will give you good clothes, and then you may amuse
yourself.' I didn't like them, and refused, saying to myself, 'I know
how to sew very well, and