Further on the sand is damper, and in the mountain the little fingers pierce a tunnel.  A gigantic work which the boot of a passer-by will soon destroy.  What passer-by respects a baby’s mountain?  Hence the young rascal avenges himself.  See that gentleman in the brown frockcoat, who is reading the ‘Revue des Deux Mondes’ on the bench; our workers have piled up hillocks of sand and dust around him, the skirts of his coat have already lost their color.

But let this equipage noisily dashing along go by.  Four horses, two bits of string, and a fifth horse who is the driver.  That is all, and yet one fancies one’s self in a postchaise.  How many places has one not visited by nightfall?

There are drivers who prefer to be horses, there are horses who would rather be drivers; first symptoms of ambition.

And the solitary baby who slowly draws his omnibus round the gaufre seller, eyeing his shop!  An indefatigable consumer, but a poor paymaster.

Do you see down there under the plane-trees that group of nurses, a herd of Burgundian milch kine, and at their feet, rolling on a carpet, all those little rosy cheeked philosophers who only ask God for a little sunshine, pure milk, and quiet, in order to be happy.  Frequently an accident disturbs the delightful calm.  The Burgundian who mistrusted matters darts forward.  It is too late.

“The course of a river is not to be checked,” says Giboyer.

Sometimes the disaster is still more serious, and one repairs it as one can; but the philosopher who loves these disasters is indignant and squalls, swearing to himself to begin again.

Those little folk are delightful; we love children, but this affection for the species in general becomes yet more sweet when it is no longer a question of a baby, but of one’s own baby.

Bachelors must not read what follows; I wish to speak to the family circle.  Between those of a trade there is a better understanding.

I am a father, my dear madame, and have been of course the rejoicing papa of a matchless child.  From beneath his cap there escaped a fair and curly tress that was our delight, and when I touched his white neck with my finger he broke into a laugh and showed me his little white pearls, as he clasped my head in his two chubby arms.

His first tooth was an event.  We went into the light the better to see.  The grandparents looked through their glasses at the little white spot, and I, with outstretched neck, demonstrated, explained and proved.  And all at once I ran off to the cellar to seek out in the right corner a bottle of the best.

My son’s first tooth.  We spoke of his career during dinner, and at dessert grand-mamma gave us a song.

After this tooth came others, and with them tears and pain, but then when they were all there how proudly he bit into his slice of bread, how vigorously he attacked his chop in order to eat “like papa.”