was perched aloft with arms extended. Claude, who delighted
in feats of strength and dexterity, would stand for hours watching the
flight of these masses of osier, and would burst into a hearty laugh
whenever too vigorous a toss sent them flying over the pile into the
roadway beyond. He was fond, too, of the footways of the Rue Rambuteau
and the Rue du Pont Neuf, near the fruit market, where the retail
dealers congregated. The sight of the vegetables displayed in the open
air, on trestle-tables covered with damp black rags, was full of charm
for him. At four in the afternoon the whole of this nook of greenery was
aglow with sunshine; and Claude wandered between the stalls, inspecting
the bright-coloured heads of the saleswomen with keen artistic relish.
The younger ones, with their hair in nets, had already lost all
freshness of complexion through the rough life they led; while the older
ones were bent and shrivelled, with wrinkled, flaring faces showing
under the yellow kerchiefs bound round their heads. Cadine and Marjolin
refused to accompany him hither, as they could perceive old Mother
Chantemesse shaking her fist at them, in her anger at seeing them
prowling about together. He joined them again, however, on the opposite
footway, where he found a splendid subject for a picture in the
stallkeepers squatting under their huge umbrellas of faded red, blue,
and violet, which, mounted upon poles, filled the whole market-side with
bumps, and showed conspicuously against the fiery glow of the sinking
sun, whose rays faded amidst the carrots and the turnips. One tattered
harridan, a century old, was sheltering three spare-looking lettuces
beneath an umbrella of pink silk, shockingly split and stained.

Cadine and Marjolin had struck up an acquaintance with Leon, Quenu's
apprentice, one day when he was taking a pie to a house in the
neighbourhood. They saw him cautiously raise the lid of his pan in a
secluded corner of the Rue de Mondetour, and delicately take out a ball
of forcemeat. They smiled at the sight, which gave them a very high
opinion of Leon. And the idea came to Cadine that she might at last
satisfy one of her most ardent longings. Indeed, the very next time that
she met the lad with his basket she made herself very agreeable, and
induced him to offer her a forcemeat ball. But, although she laughed and
licked her fingers, she experienced some disappointment. The forcemeat
did not prove nearly so nice as she had a