"Mother has sold him for a thousand francs to the foreign gentleman."
"Sold him!"
Lolo grew white and grew cold as ice; he stammered, threw up his hands over his head, gasped a little for breath, then fell down in a dead swoon, his poor useless limb doubled under him.
When Tasso came home that sad night and found his little brother shivering, moaning, and half delirious, and when he heard what had been done, he was sorely grieved.
"Oh, mother, how could you do it?" he cried. "Poor, poor Moufflou! and Lolo loves him so!"
"I have got the money," said his mother, feverishly, "and you will not need to go for a soldier: we can buy your substitute. What is a poodle, that you mourn about it? We can get another poodle for Lolo."
"Another will not be Moufflou," said Tasso, and yet was seized with such a frantic happiness himself at the knowledge that he would not need go to the army, that he too felt as if he were drunk on new wine, and had not the heart to rebuke his mother.
"A thousand francs!" he muttered; "a thousand francs! Dio mio! Who could ever have fancied anybody would have given such a price for a common white poodle? One would think the gentleman had bought the church and the tabernacle!"
"Fools and their money are soon parted," said his mother, with cross contempt.
It was true: she had sold Moufflou.