Oh, to be able to take a mouthful,--just one little mouthful of that brown, sweet crust! He put his face down close, and shut his eyes, drawing in the delicious odor with long, deep breaths.

What bliss it would be to have that whole loaf for his own,--he, little Jules, who was to have no supper that night! He held it up in the moonlight, hungrily looking at it on every side.

There was not a broken place to be found anywhere on its surface; not one crack in all that hard, brown glaze of crust, from which he might pinch the tiniest crumb.
For a moment a mad impulse seized him to tear it in pieces, and eat every scrap, regardless of the reckoning with Brossard afterwards.

But it was only for a moment.

The memory of his last beating stayed his hand.