Page 833 - les-miserables

her any question in the book, and she would answer it.
‘Well?’
‘She did not answer it.’
‘Let us see about it. What did you ask her?’
‘I opened the book at random, as she proposed, and I put
the first question that I came across.’
‘And what was the question?’
‘It was, ‘What happened after that?’’
It was there that that profound remark was made
anent a rather greedy paroquet which belonged to a lady
boarder:—
‘How well bred! it eats the top of the slice of bread and
butter just like a person!’
It was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there
was once picked up a confession which had been written out
in advance, in order that she might not forget it, by a sinner
of seven years:—
‘Father, I accuse myself of having been avaricious.
‘Father, I accuse myself of having been an adulteress.
‘Father, I accuse myself of having raised my eyes to the
gentlemen.’
It was on one of the turf benches of this garden that a rosy
mouth six years of age improvised the following tale, which
was listened to by blue eyes aged four and five years:—
‘There were three little cocks who owned a country where
there were a great many flowers. They plucked the flowers
and put them in their pockets. After that they plucked the
leaves and put them in their playthings. There was a wolf in
that country; there was a great deal of forest; and the wolf

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