uncle Antoine.

The scene was much the same every time the young man called. He used
to come in the evening, while the Macquarts were at dinner. The father
would be swallowing some potato stew with a growl, picking out the
pieces of bacon, and watching the dish when it passed into the hands of
Jean and Gervaise.

"You see, Silvere," he would say with a sullen rage which was
ill-concealed beneath his air of cynical indifference, "more potatoes,
always potatoes! We never eat anything else now. Meat is only for
rich people. It's getting quite impossible to make both ends meet with
children who have the devil's appetite and their own too."

Gervaise and Jean bent over their plates, no longer even daring to cut
some bread. Silvere, who in his dream lived in heaven, did not grasp the
situation. In a calm voice he pronounced these storm-laden words:

"But you should work, uncle."

"Ah! yes," sneered Macquart, stung to the quick. "You want me to work,
eh! To let those beggars, the rich folk, continue to prey upon me. I
should earn probably twenty sous a day, and ruin my constitution. It's
worth while, isn't it?"

"Everyone earns what he can," the young man replied. "Twenty sous are
twenty sous; and it all helps in a home. Besides, you're an old soldier,
why don't you seek some employment?"

Fine would then interpose, with a thoughtlessness of which she soon
repented.

"That's what I'm always telling him," said she. "The market inspector
wants an assistant; I mentioned my husband to him, and he seems well
disposed towards us."

But Macquart interrupted her with a fulminating glance. "Eh! hold
your tongue," he growled with suppressed anger. "Women never know
what they're talking about! Nobody would have me; my opinions are too
well-known."

Every time he was offered employment he displayed similar irritation. He
did not cease, however, to ask for situations, though he always refused
such as were found for him, assigning the most extraordinary reasons.
When pressed upon the point he became terrible.

If Jean were to take up a newspaper after dinner he would at once
exclaim: "You'd better go to bed. You'll be getting up late to-morrow,
and that'll be another day lost. To think of that young rascal coming
home with eight francs short last week! However, I've requested his
master not give him his money in future; I'll call for it myself."

Jean would go to bed to avoid his father's recriminations. He had but
little