The Chourineur uttered a blasphemous oath, accompanied with such furious imprecations that all the guests in the tapis-franc looked at him with astonishment.
"Why, what is the matter with you?" asked Rodolph.
"The matter! the matter! I'll skin her alive, that infernal old hag, if I can catch her! Where is she? Tell me, where is she? Let me find her, and I'll throttle the old—"
"And did she really take out your tooth, my poor child,—that wretched monster in woman's shape?" demanded Rodolph, whilst the Chourineur was venting his rage in a volley of the most violent reproaches.
"Yes, sir; but not at the first pull. How I suffered! She held me with my head between her knees, where she held it as if in a vice. Then, half with her pincers, half with her fingers, she pulled out my tooth, and then said, 'Now I will pull out one every day, Pegriotte; and when you have not a tooth left I will throw you into the river, and the fish shall eat you.'"
"The old devil! To break and pull out a poor child's teeth in that way!" exclaimed the Chourineur, with redoubled fury.
"And how did you escape her then?" inquired Rodolph of the Goualeuse.
"Next day, instead of going to Montfauçon, I went on the side of the Champs Elysées, so frightened was I of being drowned by the Chouette. I would have run to the end of the world, rather than be again in the Chouette's hands. After walking and walking, I fairly lost myself; I had not begged a farthing, and the more I thought the more frightened did I become. At night I hid myself in a timber-yard, under some piles of wood. As I was very little, I was able to creep under an old door and hide myself amongst a heap of logs. I was so hungry that I tried to gnaw a piece of the bark, but I could not bite it,—it was too hard. At length I fell asleep. In the morning, hearing a noise, I hid myself still further back in the wood-pile. It was tolerably warm, and, if I had had something to eat, I could not have been better off for the winter."
"I did not dare to quit the timber-yard, for I fancied that the Chouette would seek for me everywhere, to pull out my teeth and drown me, and that she would be sure to catch me if I stirred from where I was."