"There must be something the matter with the child," and mechanically he lifted up his little nightshirt.
He uttered a prolonged "O—o—h!" of astonishment. The child's calves, thighs, and buttocks were covered with blue spots as big as halfpennies.
"Just look, Matilda!" the father exclaimed; "this is horrible!" And the mother rushed forward in a fright. It was horrible; no doubt the beginning of some sort of leprosy, of one of those strange affections of the skin which doctors are often at a loss to account for.
The parents looked at one another in consternation.
"We must send for the doctor," the father said.
But Matilda, pale as death, was looking at her child, who was spotted like a leopard. Then suddenly uttering a violent cry, as if she had seen something that filled her with horror, she exclaimed:
"Oh! the wretch!"
In his astonishment M. Moreau asked: "What are you talking about? What wretch?"
She got red up to the roots of her hair, and stammered:
"Oh, nothing! but I think I can guess—it must be—we ought to send for the doctor ... it must be that wretch of a nurse who has been pinching the poor child to make him keep quiet when he cries."