"Why, brother has taken my nice handkerchief; and besides, didn't you hear what he said?"
"What?"
"He means to take us with him, and put us apprentice."
"And ain't you glad?"
"Ma foi, no!"
"Would you rather stay here and be beaten every day?"
"Why, if I am beaten I am not made to work. I am all day in the boat, fishing, or playing, or waiting on the customers, who sometimes give me something, as the stout lame man did. It is much more amusing than to be from morning till night shut up in a workshop working like a dog."
"But didn't you understand? Why, brother said that if we remained here longer we should become evil-disposed."
"Ah! bah! That's all one to me, since the other children call us already little thieves,—little guillotines! And then to work is too tiresome!"
"But here they are always beating us, brother!"