She could not,
therefore, have patience with the incessant anxiety which little
Jacques excited by his pranks.
One day Madame C---- had gone out for a walk, leaving the children
locked in a room above, five of them, two younger and two older
than Jacques; and these together had been in a state of riotous
insurrection the whole morning. Little Jacques was not of a
disposition to submit to ignominious imprisonment, when human
ingenuity could devise means of escape; while his brothers were
running wild together, he soberly hunted up another key, screwed and
scraped and got it into the key-hole; it turned, and he was out.
Half an hour afterwards, his mother, returning, caught the unfortunate
fugitive contemplatively perched on the edge of the fountain-basin. In
such a frenzy of anger as only unreasonable people are subject to,
she caught the child, shivering with terror, and thrust him into the
water. The gold-fish splashed and swirled, and the water streamed over
the sides of the basin. It was only an instant's work; snatching up
the forlorn fisher, she shook him unmercifully, and set him upon the
floor, dripping and breathless. I saw nothing of them until night.
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