The greatest misfortune of all, however, was that in the Rue de la Federation Alexandre made the acquaintance of Alfred, Norine’s youngest brother, the last born of the Moineaud family.  He was then twenty, and thus two years the senior of his nephew.  No worse prowler than he existed.  He was the genuine rough, with pale, beardless face, blinking eyes, and twisted mouth, the real gutter-weed that sprouts up amid the Parisian manure-heaps.  At seven years of age he robbed his sisters, beating Cecile every Saturday in order to tear her earnings from her.  Mother Moineaud, worn out with hard work and unable to exercise a constant watch over him, had never managed to make him attend school regularly, or to keep him in apprenticeship.  He exasperated her to such a degree that she herself ended by turning him into the streets in order to secure a little peace and quietness at home.  His big brothers kicked him about, his father was at work from morning till evening, and the child, thus morally a waif, grew up out of doors for a career of vice and crime among the swarms of lads and girls of his age, who all rotted there together like apples fallen on the ground.  And as Alfred grew he became yet more corrupt; he was like the sacrificed surplus of a poor man’s family, the surplus poured into the gutter, the spoilt fruit which spoils all that comes into contact with it.

Like Alexandre, too, he nowadays only lived chancewise, and it was not even known where he had been sleeping, since Mother Moineaud had died at a hospital exhausted by her long life of wretchedness and family cares which had proved far too heavy for her.  She was only sixty at the time of her death, but was as bent and as worn out as a centenarian.  Moineaud, two years older, bent like herself, his legs twisted by paralysis, a lamentable wreck after fifty years of unjust toil, had been obliged to quit the factory, and thus the home was empty, and its few poor sticks had been cast to the four winds of heaven.

Moineaud fortunately received a little pension, for which he was indebted to Denis’s compassionate initiative.  But he was sinking into second childhood, worn out by his long and constant efforts, and not only did he squander his few coppers in drink, but he could not be left alone, for his feet were lifeless, and his hands shook to such a degree that he ran the risk of setting all about him on fire whenever he tried to light his pipe.  At last he found himself stranded in the home of his daughters, Norine and Cecile, the only two who had heart enough to take him in.  They rented a little closet for him, on the fifth floor of the house, over their own room, and they nursed him and bought him food and clothes with his pension-money, to which they added a good deal of their own.  As they remarked in their gay, courageous way, they now had two children, a little one and a very old one, which was a heavy burden for two women who earned but five francs a day, although they were