Barque seizes the chance. "It'll do very likely. May we see it?"

"We do the washing there," mutters the woman, continuing to wield
her broom.

"You know," says Barque, with a smile and an engaging air, "we're
not like those disagreeable people who get drunk and make themselves
a nuisance. May we have a look?"

The woman has let her broom rest. She is thin and inconspicuous. Her
jacket hangs from her shoulders as from a valise. Her face is like
cardboard, stiff and without expression. She looks at us and
hesitates, then grudgingly leads the way into a very dark little
place, made of beaten earth and piled with dirty linen.

"It's splendid," cries Lamuse, in all honesty.

"Isn't she a darling, the little kiddie!" says Barque, as he pats
the round cheek, like painted india-rubber, of a little girl who is
staring at us with her dirty little nose uplifted in the gloom. "Is
she yours, madame?"

"And that one, too?" risks Marthereau, as he espies an over-ripe
infant on whose bladder-like cheeks are shining deposits of jam, for
the ensnaring of the dust in the air. He offers a half-hearted
caress in the direction of the moist and bedaubed countenance. The
woman does not deign an answer.

So there we are, trifling and grinning, like beggars whose plea