Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/331

 and then suddenly to go off and look up this man who found you when you were a baby."

I told him that I was very surprised, and that I'd like to know about it.

"Come near the fire then and I'll tell you all about it."

I flung the bag from my shoulders and took the chair that he offered me. As I stretched out my legs, wet, and covered with mud, to the fire my grandfather spat on one side, like an old cat that is annoyed.

"Don't pay any attention to him," said my father; "the old chap doesn't like any one to sit before his fire, but you needn't mind him, if you're cold."

I was surprised to hear any one speak like this of an old man. I kept my legs under my chair, for I thought that attention should be paid to him.

"You are my eldest son now," said my father; "you were born a year after my marriage with your mother. When I married there was a young girl who thought that I was going to marry her, and out of revenge she stole you from us when you were six months old. We searched everywhere for you but we did not go so far as Paris. We thought that you were dead until three months ago when this woman was dying she confessed the truth. I went over to France at once and the police in that locality where you had been left, told me that you had been adopted by a mason named Barberin who lived at Chavanon.