e to be over-careless
of their interests, and declared that the prolificness of his cousin
Marianne was quite scandalous.

Accustomed as Mathieu was to these attacks, which left him perfectly
serene, he went on laughing, without even giving a reply, when a workman
abruptly entered the room--one who was currently called "old Moineaud,"
though he was scarcely three-and-forty years of age. Short and
thick-set, he had a bullet head, a bull's neck, and face and hands
scarred and dented by more than a quarter of a century of toil. By
calling he was a fitter, and he had come to submit a difficulty which
had just arisen in the piecing together of a reaping machine. But, his
employer, who was still angrily thinking of over-numerous families, did
not give him time to explain his purpose.

"And you, old Moineaud, how many children have you?" he inquired.

"Seven, Monsieur Beauchene," the workman replied, somewhat taken aback.
"I've lost three."

"So, including them, you would now have ten? Well, that's a nice state
of things! How can you do otherwise than starve?"

Moineaud began to laugh like the gay thriftless Paris workman that he
was. The little ones? Well, they grew up without his even noticing it,
and, indeed, he was really fond of them, so long as they remained at
home. And, besides, they worked as they grew older, and brought a little
money in. However, he preferred to answer his employer with a jest which
set them all laughing.

After he had explained the difficulty with the reaper, the others
followed him to examine the work for themselves. They were already
turning into a passage, when Beauchene, seeing the door of the women's
workshop open, determined to pass that way, so that he might give
his customary look around. It was a long, spacious place, where the
polishers, in smocks of black serge, sat in double rows polishing and
grinding their pieces at little work-boards. Nearly all of them were
young, a few were pretty, but most had low and common faces. An animal
odor and a stench of rancid oil pervaded the place.

The regulations required perfect silence there during work. Yet all the
girls were gossiping. As soon, however, as the master's approach was
signalled the chatter abruptly ceased. There was but one girl who,
having her head turned, and thus seeing nothing of Beauchene, went on
furiously abusing a companion, with whom she had previously started a
dispute. She and the other were sisters, and, as it hap