42. "Oh, yes," the lad answered, as he looked at Gavroche gratefully.

43. The two poor little fellows who had been wet through began to grow warm again. At this moment a drop of pitch fell on Gavroche's hand.

44.

"See!" he said, "the match is wearing out. Pay attention! When people go to bed they are expected to go to sleep."

45. The storm grew more furious, and through the thunder peals the rain could be heard pattering on the back of the colossus.

46. "Wrap yourselves well in the blanket, children," said Gavroche, “for I am going to put the light out. Are you all right?" "Yes," said the elder boy, "I am all right, and feel as if I had a feather pillow under my head." The two lads crept close together; Gavroche made them comfortable on the mat, and pulled the blanket up to their ears. Then he repeated for the third time, "Go to sleep."

47. He blew out the rope's end. The light was scarce extinguished before a singular trembling began to shake the trellis work under which the three children were lying. It was a multitude of dull rubbings, as if claws and teeth were assailing the copper wire. This was accompanied by all sorts of little shrill cries.

48. The little boy of five

years of age, hearing

this noise above his head, was chilled with terror. He nudged his elder brother, who was sleeping already, as Gavroche had ordered him. Then the little one, unable to hold out any longer for fright, dared to address Gavroche, but in a very low voice. 49. "Sir!" "Hello!" said Gavroche, who had

just closed his eyes.

50. "What is that?" "It's the rats," Gavroche answered. And he laid his head again on the mat. 51. "Sir!" he began again. "Well?" Gavroche asked.

52. "What are rats?" "They are mice."

53. This explanation slightly reassured the child, for he had seen white mice in his life and had not been afraid of them. Still he trembled with fear.

54. "Don't be frightened," said Gavroche, "they can't get in. And then, I am here. Stay; take my hand; hold your tongue and go to sleep."

55. The night hours passed away; darkness covered the immense Bastile square. A winter wind, which was mingled with rain, blew in gusts. The patrols examined doors and dark corners, searching for vagabonds, and passed silently before the elephant. The monster, erect and motionless, with its eyes open in the darkness, sheltered from the sky and rain the three poor, sleeping children.

XL. THE STORY OF MY BOYHOOD

I.

I

1. My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident. If, when I was a boy, a good fairy had met me and said, "Choose now thine own course through life, and I will guide and defend thee," my fate could not have been directed more happily.

2. In the year 1805, there lived in Odense, in a small room, a young married couple. The man was a shoemaker, scarcely twenty-two years old, a man of richly gifted and truly poetical mind. His wife was ignorant of life and of the world, but possessed a heart full of love. The young man had himself made his shoemaking bench, and the furniture with which he began housekeeping.

3. In this small room there lay, on the 2d of April, 1805, a living, weeping child. That was myself, Hans Christian Andersen.

During the

first day of my existence my father is said to have sat by my bed and read aloud, but I cried all the time.

4. "Wilt thou go to sleep, or listen quietly?" my father asked in joke; but I still cried on.

5. Our little room, which was almost filled with the shoemaker's bench and my crib, was the abode