Much saving had made him miserly. Old Therese, the woman with the
fish-cart, used to say that he was the stingiest man in all Tourraine.
She ought to know, for she had sold him a fish every Friday during all
those twenty years, and he had never once failed to quarrel about the
price. Five years had gone by since the master's last visit. Brossard
and Henri were not likely to forget that time, for they had been
awakened in the dead of night by a loud knocking at the side gate. When
they opened it the sight that greeted them made them rub their sleepy
eyes to be sure that they saw aright.
There stood the master, old Martin Ciseaux. His hair and fiercely
bristling mustache had turned entirely white since they had last seen
him. In his arms he carried a child.
Brossard almost dropped his candle in his first surprise, and his wonder
grew until he could hardly contain it, when the curly head raised itself
from monsieur's shoulder, and the sleepy baby voice lisped something in
a foreign tongue.
"By all the saints!" muttered Brossard, as he stood aside for his master
to pass.
"It's my brother Jules's grandson," was the curt explanation that
monsieur offered. "Jules is dead, and so is his son and all the
family,--died in America. This is his son's son, Jules, the last of the
name. If I choose to take him from a foreign poorhouse and give him
shelter, it's nobody's business, Louis Brossard, but my own.
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