At the corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier, a bent old woman was rummaging in a heap of refuse by the light of a street lantern; the child jostled her as he passed, then recoiled, exclaiming:⁠—

“Hello! And I took it for an enormous, enormous dog!”

He pronounced the word “enormous” the second time with a jeering swell of the voice which might be tolerably well represented by capitals: “an enormous, enormous dog.”

The old woman straightened herself up in a fury.

“Nasty brat!” she grumbled. “If I hadn’t been bending over, I know well where I would have planted my foot on you.”

The boy was already far away.

“Kisss! kisss!” he cried. “After that, I don’t think I was mistaken!”