This wretched boy is more than hungry; he is mad.  It is not appetite, it is ferocity.  He is carried away by a rabid virus.  Perhaps he has the plague.  Have you the plague, you thief?  Suppose he were to give it to Homo!  No, never!  Let the populace die, but not my wolf.  But by-the-bye I am hungry myself.  I declare that this is all very disagreeable.  I have worked far into the night.  There are seasons in a man’s life when he is hard pressed.  I was to-night, by hunger.  I was alone.  I made a fire.  I had but one potato, one crust of bread, a mouthful of bacon, and a drop of milk, and I put it to warm.  I said to myself, ‘Good.’  I think I am going to eat, and bang! this crocodile falls upon me at the very moment.  He installs himself clean between my food and myself.  Behold, how my larder is devastated!  Eat, pike, eat!  You shark! how many teeth have you in your jaws?  Guzzle, wolf-cub; no, I withdraw that word.  I respect wolves.  Swallow up my food, boa.  I have worked all day, and far into the night, on an empty stomach; my throat is sore, my pancreas in distress, my entrails torn; and my reward is to see another eat.  ’Tis all one, though!  We will divide.  He shall have the bread, the potato, and the bacon; but I will have the milk.”

Just then a wail, touching and prolonged, arose in the hut.  The man listened.

“You cry, sycophant!  Why do you cry?”

The boy turned towards him.  It was evident that it was not he who cried.  He had his mouth full.

The cry continued.

The man went to the chest.

“So it is your bundle that wails!  Vale of Jehoshaphat!  Behold a vociferating parcel!  What the devil has your bundle got to croak about?”

He unrolled the jacket.  An infant’s head appeared, the mouth open and crying.

“Well, who goes there?” said the man.  “Here is another of them.  When is this to end?  Who is there?  To arms!  Corporal, call out the guard!  Another bang!  What have you brought me, thief!  Don’t you see it is thirsty?  Come! the little one must have a drink.  So now I shall not have even the milk!”

He took down from the things lying in disorder on the shelf a bandage of linen, a sponge and a phial, muttering savagely, “What an infernal place!”

Then he looked at the little infant. “’Tis a girl! one can tell that by her scream, and she is drenched as well.”  He dragged away, as he had done from the boy, the tatters in which she was knotted up rather than dressed, and swathed her in a rag, which, though of coarse linen, was clean and dry.  This rough and sudden dressing made the infant angry.

“She mews relentlessly,” said he.

He bit off a long piece of sponge, tore from the roll a square piece of linen, drew from it a bit of thread, took the saucepan containing the milk from the stove, filled the phial with milk, drove down the sponge halfway into its neck, covered the sponge with linen, tied this cork in with the thread, applied his cheeks to the phial to be sure that it was not too hot, and seized under his left arm the bewildered bundle which was still crying.  “Come! take your supper, creature!  Let me suckle you,” and he put the neck of the bottle to its mouth.