This little Jacques, when I came to his father’s house, was a rampant, noisy, cunning child, with the vivacity of French and American blood mingling in his veins, and filling him with strongest tendencies to mischief, and prompting elfish feats of activity.  He was not by any means a fascinating child,—­in fact, no children ever fascinated me,—­but this little fellow was rather disagreeable, a wonder to his father, a horror to his mother, and a great annoyance generally; we were all rather cross with him, and he was universally put down, thrust aside, and ordered out of the way.

This was the state of affairs when I came.  It was little Jacques, with a high forehead, white, tightly curling hair, and mischief-full blue eye, who made himself translator of all imaginable inquisitorial French phrases for my benefit,—­who questioned, and tormented, and made faces at me,—­who pulled my apron, disappeared with my carpet-bag, and placed a generous slice of molasses-candy upon the seat of my chair, when I sat down to rest myself.

Little Jacques ardently loved a sly fishing-expedition on the edge of the marble fountain-basin, and had lured one or two unthinking gold-fish to destruction with fly and a crooked pin.  He would sit perched up there at an odd chance, when his father was away, and he dared venture into the saloon,—­his little bare feet twinkling against the water, his plump figure curled up into the minutest size, but ready for a spring and a dart up-stairs at the shortest notice of danger.  This piscatory propensity had been severely punished by both Monsieur and Madame C——­, who could not afford to encourage such an expensive Izaak Walton; but there was no managing the child.  He seemed to possess an impish capability of eluding detection and angry denunciations.  To be sure, circumstances were against any very strict guard being kept over the youngster.  Madame C——­ was a very weak woman, a very weak woman indeed,—­she declared that such was the case,—­a nervous, dispirited woman, whom everything troubled, who could not bear the noise and tramp of life, and altogether sank under it.  Destiny had had no mercy on her weakness, however, and had left her to get along with an innumerable family of children, a philosophic husband, who took all her troubles coolly, and a constant demand for her services either in the shop or at the cradle.  She could not, therefore, have patience with the incessant anxiety which little Jacques excited by his pranks.

One day Madame C——­ had gone out for a walk, leaving the children locked in a room above, five of them, two younger and two older than Jacques; and these together had been in a state of riotous insurrection the whole morning.  Little Jacques was not of a disposition to submit to ignominious imprisonment, when human ingenuity could devise means of escape; while his brothers were running wild together, he soberly hunted up another key, screwed and scraped and got it into the key-hole; it turned, and he was out.