"Oh! stupid, is it?" said Pique-Vinaigre. "Well, the honorable society
shall be the judge.
"There was not then an animal more wicked than the large ape Gargousse,
which was, above all, as savage as his master toward children. What did
Cut-in-half do to punish Gringalet for wishing to run away? That you shall
know directly; in the mean time, he caught the child, shut him up in the
garret, saying to him, 'To-morrow morning, when all your comrades are gone,
I will take hold of you, and you shall see what I do to those who wish to
run away from here.'
"I leave you to imagine what a horrible night Gringalet passed. He hardly
closed his eyes; he wondered what Cut-in-half would do. At length he fell
asleep. But what a sleep! Then there was a dream, a frightful dream--that
is to say, the beginning--you will see. He dreamed that he was one of those
poor flies which he had so often saved from the spider's web, and that he,
in his turn, fell into a large and strong web, where he struggled with all
his strength without being able to escape; then he saw coming toward him
softly, cautiously, a kind of monster, which had the face of his master, on
a spider's body. My poor Gringalet began again to struggle, as you may
imagine; but the more efforts he made, the more he was entangled in the
toils, just like the poor flies. At length the spider approached--touched
him--and he felt the large, cold, and hairy paws of the monster encircle
him.
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