Now it happened that, at the most interesting point of the talk, the baby clutched Aristide's finger in his little brown hand. The tiny fingers clung strong.
A queer thrill ran through the impressionable man. The tiny fingers seemed to close round his heart.... It was a bonny, good-natured, gurgling scrap--and the pure eyes looked truthfully into his soul.
"Poor little wretch!" said Aristide, who, peasant's son that he was, knew what he was talking about. "Poor little wretch! If you go into the Enfants Trouvés you'll have a devil of a time of it."
The tiny clasp tightened. As if the babe understood, the chuckle died from his face.
"You'll be cuffed and kicked and half starved, while your adopted mother pockets her twenty-five francs a month, and you'll belong to nobody, and wonder why the deuce you're alive, and wish you were dead; and, if you remember to-day, you'll curse me for not having had the decency to run over you."
The clasp relaxed, puckers appeared at the corners of the dribbling mouth, and a myriad tiny horizontal lines of care marked the sock-capped brow.
"Poor little devil!" said Aristide. "My heart bleeds for you, especially now that you're dressed in my sock and pyjama, and are sucking the only shoe-horn I ever possessed."
A welcome sound caused Aristide to leap into the middle of the road. He looked ahead, and there, in a cloud of dust, a thing like a torpedo came swooping down. He held up both his arms, the signal of a motorist in distress. The torpedo approached with slackened speed, and stopped. It was an evil-looking, drab, high-powered racer, and two bears with goggles sat in the midst thereof. The bear at the wheel raised his cap and asked courteously:--
At that moment the baby broke into heart-rending cries. Aristide took off his goat-skin cap and, remaining uncovered, looked at the bear, then at the baby, then at the bear again.
"Monsieur," said he, "I suppose it's useless to ask you whether you have any milk and a feeding-bottle?"
"_Mais dites donc!_" shouted the bear, furiously, his hand on the brake. "Stop an automobile like this on such a pretext----?"
Aristide held up a protesting hand, and fixed the bear with the irresistible roguery of his eyes.