The father replied:
"That would be imprudent."
And he led his little bourgeois away.
The son, regretting the swans, turned his head back toward the basin until a corner of the quincunxes concealed it from him.
In the meanwhile, the two little waifs had approached the brioche at the same time as the swans.
It was floating on the water. The smaller of them stared at the cake, the elder gazed after the retreating bourgeois.
Father and son entered the labyrinth of walks which leads to the grand flight of steps near the clump of trees on the side of the Rue Madame.
As soon as they had disappeared from view, the elder child hastily flung himself flat on his stomach on the rounding curb of the basin, and clinging to it with his left hand, and leaning over the water, on the verge of falling in, he stretched out his right hand with his stick towards the cake.
The swans, perceiving the enemy, made haste, and in so doing, they produced an effect of their breasts which was of service to the little fisher; the water flowed back before the swans, and one of these gentle concentric undulations softly floated the brioche towards the child''s wand.
Just as the swans came up, the stick touched the cake.
The child gave it a brisk rap, drew in the brioche, frightened away the swans, seized the cake, and sprang to his feet.