Chapter III.
"Thus liv'd the lad, in hunger, peril, pain,
His tears despis'd, his supplications vain.
…
Strange that a frame so weak could bear so long
The grossest insult and the foulest wrong;
But there were causes."
Crabbe.
Marcel had continued to ply this business for the profit of Pelagie Vautrin about two years, most times half-starved, and ofttimes beaten, and had become one of the quickest-sighted and quickest-witted of the little rag-pickers of Paris, when one wet winter's night, as he passed near St. Michael's Bridge, he put his foot on something hard.
To pick it up, to see by the nearest gaslight that it was a coarse linen bag, containing a quantity of gold coin, was the work of a minute; the next saw him running as if for dear life to the office of the Commissary of Police in the Rue des Noyers; he knew the place well by the red-glass lamp over the door. Almost breathless he handed his prize to the worthy magistrate, telling him at the same time where he had found it.
The commissary looked into his little, eager, intelligent face while he told his story, then taking his hand kindly, "You are a good boy," said he, "and, mark my words, your honesty will bring you good luck."
Marcel blushed with pleasure and surprise to be praised, but stood nervously twirling his ragged cap round and round.
"The man who lost the bag of gold," continued the commissary, "was here half an hour since; he is a poor clerk, and is in despair; he is afraid of going back to his employers to tell them that he has lost their money. You have saved him and his poor wife and children from much misery. Go, you are a good boy; but first tell me your name and where you live."
The child told him, it was written carefully down, and he then went away happier than he had ever been since that dreadful day when he had convulsively fastened himself to his father's dead body as it lay on the barricade.
But as he approached his miserable home, this happy feeling decreased; and he began to think of what Pelagie would say if she knew what he had been doing. To tell or not to tell, that was the question, and it was not yet decided when he opened the door of the dismal room, where Pelagie, drunk as usual, was making her preparations for going to bed.