"You can do as you like as to that, he will not complain."
Louis went away, and as he passed by Fidèle, the dog began to growl. "Go away," said the child, "I don't wish to be bitten again," and he held his little finger in his other hand, as if it had been dreadfully wounded. He went to look for his little sister Henriette, to come and play with him, but she had just pricked her finger with her needle, and being as little able to bear pain as himself, she received his proposition with a very bad grace. "Let me alone," she said, "I have pricked my finger," and she watched the blood which scarcely tinged the water into which she had plunged it.
"That's a funny sort of a wound!" said Louis, "Why the blood doesn't come!"—"A funny sort of a wound? Oh! you shall see if it is so funny," and she immediately pricked him with the needle, which she still held in her hand. "Oh! oh! oh! nurse, Henrietta has pricked me, give me a glass of water, oh!" The nurse brought him the water without looking at him, she was leaning her head upon her left hand.
"Just look, nurse, how she has pricked me."
"What am I to look at? What a terrible affair: what would you say if you had such a tooth-ache as I have?"
"Have you the tooth-ache?"
"Yes: I have had no sleep these three nights, and I shall certainly go to-morrow and have the tooth which torments me taken out; for I don't want to let my work lie there," and she went and resumed her sewing.
When Louis, after having well squeezed his finger, could make no more blood flow from it, he was greatly embarrassed. How was he to amuse himself? Fidèle still growled at him, Henriette was out of temper, and his nurse had the tooth-ache and was busy; every one was taken up with his own sufferings. Louis did not find the house very gay; he therefore went back to his mother, who, at all events, was not a grumbler. At this moment he heard on the stairs the voice of little Charles, one of his companions. He rushed forward to open the door. Charles, accompanied by his tutor, had come to ask him to join him and five or six other boys of his age, in a walk to the Canal de l'Ourcq, to see the skating. Louis, transported with joy, obtained his mother's consent: he put on his great coat and his fur gloves, and they set off.
It was the middle of winter, but the weather was dry, and the sun brilliant. The little boys ran and jumped about the whole of the way. Louis did the same at first, but by degrees he felt his nose getting cold, and one of his hands was fully employed in holding it and keeping it warm. His fingers soon became numb; he put the hand he was not using into his pocket, and complained of being obliged to leave the other exposed to the air; then his feet became cold. It was quite useless to tell him that if he ran about, he would soon get warm again.