nse-box?" Then,
approaching Morel, he added: "I say, my fine fellow, right about file!
March on! Let us get out of here, will you, and have a little fresh air.
You stink enough to poison a cat in this here hole!"

"Morel!" shrieked Madeleine, wildly, "don't go! Kill those wretches! Oh,
you coward, not to knock them down! What! are you going to let them
take you away? Are you going to abandon us all?"

"Pray don't put yourself out of the way, ma'am," said Bourdin, with an
ironical grin. "I've only just got to remark that if your good man lays
his little finger on me, why I'll make him remember it," continued he,
swinging his loaded stick round and round.

Entirely occupied with thoughts of Louise, Morel scarcely heard a word
of what was passing. All at once an expression of bitter satisfaction
passed over his countenance, as he said:

"Louise has doubtless left the notary's house; now I shall go to prison
willingly." Then, casting a troubled look around him, he exclaimed: "But
my wife! Her mother! The children! Who will provide for them? No one
will trust me with stones to work at in prison, for it will be supposed
my bad conduct has sent me there. Does this hard-hearted notary wish the
destruction of myself and all my family also?"

"Once, twice, old chap," said Bourdin, "will you stop your gammon? You
are enough to bore a man to death. Come, put on your things, and let us
be off."

"Good gentlemen, kind gentlemen," cried Madeleine, from her sick-bed,
"pray forgive what I said just now! Surely you will not be so cruel as
to take my husband away; what will become of me and my five poor
children, and my old mother, who is an idiot? There she lies; you see
her, poor old creature, huddled up on her mattress; she is quite out of
her senses, my good gentlemen; she is, indeed, quite mad!"

"La! what, that old bald-headed thing a woman? Well, hang me if that
ain't enough to astonish a man!"

"I'll be hanged if it isn't, then!" cried the other bailiff, bursting
into a horse-laugh; "why, I took it for something tied up in an old
sack. Look! her old head is shaved quite close; it seems as though she
had got a white skull-cap on."

"Go, children, and kneel down, and beg of these good gentlemen not to
take away your poor father, our only support," said Madeleine, anxious
by a last effort to touch the hearts of the bailiffs. But, spite of
their mother's orders, the terrified children remained weeping on their
miserable mat