in a weak voice:
"I beg your pardon, madame, I beg your pardon. If you only knew how
hungry and cold I am! I beg your pardon! Oh! I am so cold."

"Poor child!" she said, putting her arms around him and kissing him.
And she carried him off, with a full, but happy heart, and while he
continued to sob, she said to him mechanically: "Don't be frightened, my
little man. You will see how nice I can be! And then, you can warm
yourself; I have a capital fire." But the fire was out; the room,
however, was warm, and the child said, as soon as they got in: "Oh! How
comfortable it is here! It is a great deal better than in the streets, I
can tell you! And I have been living in the streets for six days." He
began to cry again, and added: "I beg your pardon, madame. I have eaten
nothing for two days."

Tall Fanny opened her cupboard, which had glass doors. The middle shelf
held all her linen, and on the upper one there was a box of Albert
biscuits, a drop of brandy at the bottom of a bottle, and a few small
lumps of sugar in a cup. With that, and some water out of the bottle,
she concocted a sort of broth, which he swallowed ravenously, and when
he had done, he wished to tell his story, which he did, yawning all the
time.

His grandfather, (the only one of his relations whom he had ever known,)
who had been painter and decorator at Soisson, had died about a month
before; but before his death he had said to him: "When I am gone,
little man, you will find a letter to my brother, who is in business in
Paris, among my papers. You must take it to him, and he will be certain
to take care of you. However, in any case you must go to Paris, for you
have an aptitude for painting, and only there can you hope to become an
artist."

When the old man was dead (he died in the hospital), the child started,
dressed in an old coat of his grandfather's and with thirty francs,
which was all that the old man had left behind him in his pocket. But
when he got to Paris, there was nobody of the name at the address
mentioned on the letter. The dead man's brother had left there six
months before, and nobody knew where he had gone to, and so the child
was alone, and for a few days he managed to exist on what he had over,
after paying for his journey. After he had spent his last franc, he had
wandered about the streets, as he had no money with which to pay for a
bed, buying his bread by the half-penny-worth, until for the last
forty-eight hours, he had bee