Many a time Manuel was on the point of bursting into the room, for it seemed to him that those beasts were torturing the little girl.
One morning, encountering the carpenter’s wife, he said to her:
“Why do you beat that poor little girl so?”
“Is it any of your business?”
“It certainly is.”
“Isn’t she my daughter? I can do what I please with her.”
“That’s what your mother should have done with you,” retorted Manuel. “Beat the life out of you for a witch.”
The woman grumbled something or other and Manuel went off to the printing-shop.
That night the carpenter stopped Manuel.