onsieur Podvin was assisted by a patron of the Rendez-Vous pour
Cochers; but he usually worked alone, being of a covetous nature and
unwilling to share profits. When accompanied, it was with the
understanding that the booty was to be divided into equal shares,
Tartar counting as an individual and coming in on equal terms, and one
share on account of Fouchette,--all of which went to Monsieur Podvin.

For, without any knowledge or reward, Fouchette was made to do the
most dangerous part of the business,--which lay in the disposal of the
proceeds of the chase. It was innocently carried by her in her
rag-basket to the receiver inside the barriers.

Where adults would have been suspected and probably searched, first by
the customs officers and then by the police, Fouchette went
unchallenged. Her towering basket, under which bent the frail little
half-starved figure, marked her scarcely more conspicuously than her
ready wit and cheerful though coarse retorts to would-be sympathizers.
Her load was delivered to those who examined its contents out of her
sight. The price went back by another carrier,--a patron of the
Rendez-Vous pour Cochers. "La petite chiffonniere" was widely known in
the small world of the Porte de Charenton.

As for Fouchette,--well, she has already, in her laconic way, given
about all that she knew of her earlier history. Picked up in a
rag-heap by a chiffonniere of the barrier, she had succeeded to a
brutal life that had in five years reduced her to the physical level
of the spaniel, Tartar. In fact, her position was really inferior,
since the dog was never beaten and had always plenty to eat.

Instead of killing her, as would have been the fate of one of the
lower animals subjected to the same treatment, all this had seemed to
toughen the child,--to render her physically and morally as hard as
nails.

It would be too much or too little--according to the point of view--to
assume that Fouchette was patient under her yoke and that she went
about her tasks with the docility of a well-trained animal. On the
contrary, she not only rebelled in spirit, but she often resisted
with all her feeble strength, fighting, feet, hands, and teeth, with
feline ferocity. Having been brought to the level of brutes, she had
become a brute in instinct, in her sensibility to kindness, her
pig-headedness, resentment of injury, and dogged resistance.

On her ninth birthday--which, however, was unknown--Monsieur Podvin,
over