“Why does he make that abominable noise?” asks the nobleman.
“Pardon me, Monsieur le Marquis, it was his child,” explains one of the crowd humbly.
“Killed!” screams the father, lifting and extending his arms. “Dead!” he cries.
The Marquis runs his eye over all the rabble, as though they were so many rats come out of their holes. He draws out his purse.
“I do not see why it is that you people won’t take care of yourselves and children? One or the other of you are always in the way. How do I know that you have not injured one of my horses?”
With this he throws a gold coin on the ground beside the father of the child.
The crazed parent continues to scream: “Dead! Dead!”
As the Marquis is driving away, the gold coin which he had thrown to the ground is flung back into the carriage, and falls rattling at his feet.
“Hold!” says the Marquis. “Hold the horses! Who threw that coin?”
The crowd makes no answer. No blouse-clad man dare look him in the eye.