creature," Florent felt bound to say. "I have rarely
seen such a fine one."

Claire thereupon confessed to him that she had at first been frightened
of eels; but now she had learned how to tighten her grip so that they
could not slip away. From another compartment she took a smaller one,
which began to wriggle both with head and tail, as she held it about
the middle in her closed fist. This made her laugh. She let it go, then
seized another and another, scouring the basin and stirring up the whole
heap of snaky-looking creatures with her slim fingers.

Afterwards she began to speak of the slackness of trade. The hawkers on
the foot-pavement of the covered way did the regular saleswomen a great
deal of injury, she said. Meantime her bare arm, which she had not
wiped, was glistening and dripping with water. Big drops trickled from
each finger.

"Oh," she exclaimed suddenly, "I must show you my carp, too!"

She now removed another grating, and, using both hands, lifted out a
large carp, which began to flap its tail and gasp. It was too big to be
held conveniently, so she sought another one. This was smaller, and she
could hold it with one hand, but the latter was forced slightly open
by the panting of the sides each time that the fish gasped. To amuse
herself it occurred to Claire to pop the tip of her thumb into the
carp's mouth whilst it was dilated. "It won't bite," said she with her
gentle laugh; "it's not spiteful. No more are the crawfishes; I'm not
the least afraid of them."

She plunged her arm into the water again, and from a compartment full
of a confused crawling mass brought up a crawfish that had caught her
little finger in its claws. She gave the creature a shake, but it no
doubt gripped her too tightly, for she turned very red, and snapped off
its claw with a quick, angry gesture, though still continuing to smile.

"By the way," she continued quickly, to conceal her emotion, "I wouldn't
trust myself with a pike; he'd cut off my fingers like a knife."

She thereupon showed him some big pike arranged in order of size upon
clean scoured shelves, beside some bronze-hued tench and little heaps of
gudgeon. Her hands were now quite slimy with handling the carp, and as
she stood there in the dampness rising from the tanks, she held them
outstretched over the dripping fish on the stall. She seemed enveloped
by an odour of spawn, that heavy scent which rises from among the reeds
and water-lilies when the fish,