He made up his mind, and placed one foot on the lowest step.

There was a great growl under the van.  He drew back.  The gaping jaws appeared.

“Peace!” cried the voice of the man.

The jaws retreated, the growling ceased.

“Come up!” continued the man.

The child with difficulty climbed up the three steps.  He was impeded by the infant, so benumbed, rolled up and enveloped in the jacket that nothing could be distinguished of her, and she was but a little shapeless mass.

He passed over the three steps; and having reached the threshold, stopped.

No candle was burning in the caravan, probably from the economy of want.  The hut was lighted only by a red tinge, arising from the opening at the top of the stove, in which sparkled a peat fire.  On the stove were smoking a porringer and a saucepan, containing to all appearance something to eat.  The savoury odour was perceptible.  The hut was furnished with a chest, a stool, and an unlighted lantern which hung from the ceiling.  Besides, to the partition were attached some boards on brackets and some hooks, from which hung a variety of things.  On the boards and nails were rows of glasses, coppers, an alembic, a vessel rather like those used for graining wax, which are called granulators, and a confusion of strange objects of which the child understood nothing, and which were utensils for cooking and chemistry.  The caravan was oblong in shape, the stove being in front.  It was not even a little room; it was scarcely a big box.  There was more light outside from the snow than inside from the stove.  Everything in the caravan was indistinct and misty.  Nevertheless, a reflection of the fire on the ceiling enabled the spectator to read in large letters,—­

    URSUS, PHILOSOPHER.

The child, in fact, was entering the house of Homo and Ursus.  The one he had just heard growling, the other speaking.

The child having reached the threshold, perceived near the stove a man, tall, smooth, thin and old, dressed in gray, whose head, as he stood, reached the roof.  The man could not have raised himself on tiptoe.  The caravan was just his size.

“Come in!” said the man, who was Ursus.

The child entered.

“Put down your bundle.”

The child placed his burden carefully on the top of the chest, for fear of awakening and terrifying it.

The man continued,—­

“How gently you put it down!  You could not be more careful were it a case of relics.  Is it that you are afraid of tearing a hole in your rags?  Worthless vagabond! in the streets at this hour!  Who are you?  Answer!  But no.  I forbid you to answer.  There!  You are cold.  Warm yourself as quick as you can,” and he shoved him by the shoulders in front of the fire.

“How wet you are!  You’re frozen through!  A nice state to come into a house!  Come, take off those rags, you villain!” and as with one hand, and with feverish haste, he dragged off the boy’s rags which tore into shreds, with the other he took down from a nail a man’s shirt, and one of those knitted jackets which are up to this day called kiss-me-quicks.