a single storeroom open, and were beginning
to think that Marjolin could not be in the cellar, when a sound of
loud, smacking kisses made them suddenly halt before a door which stood
slightly ajar. Claude pulled it open and beheld Marjolin, whom Cadine
was kissing, whilst he, a mere dummy, offered his face without feeling
the slightest thrill at the touch of her lips.

"Oh, so this is your little game, is it?" said Claude with a laugh.

"Oh," replied Cadine, quite unabashed, "he likes being kissed, because
he feels afraid now in the dim light. You do feel frightened, don't
you?"

Like the idiot he was, Marjolin stroked his face with his hands as
though trying to find the kisses which the girl had just printed there.
And he was beginning to stammer out that he was afraid, when Cadine
continued: "And, besides, I came to help him; I've been feeding the
pigeons."

Florent looked at the poor creatures. All along the shelves were rows of
lidless boxes, in which pigeons, showing their motley plumage, crowded
closely on their stiffened legs. Every now and then a tremor ran along
the moving mass; and then the birds settled down again, and nothing was
heard but their confused, subdued notes. Cadine had a saucepan near her;
she filled her mouth with the water and tares which it contained, and
then, taking up the pigeons one by one, shot the food down their throats
with amazing rapidity. The poor creatures struggled and nearly choked,
and finally fell down in the boxes with swimming eyes, intoxicated, as
it were, by all the food which they were thus forced to swallow.[*]

[*] This is the customary mode of fattening pigeons at the
Paris markets. The work is usually done by men who make a
specialty of it, and are called _gaveurs_.--Translator.

"Poor creatures!" exclaimed Claude.

"Oh, so much the worse for them," said Cadine, who had now finished.
"They are much nicer eating when they've been well fed. In a couple of
hours or so all those over yonder will be given a dose of salt water.
That makes their flesh white and tender. Then two hours afterwards
they'll be killed. If you would like to see the killing, there are some
here which are quite ready. Marjolin will settle their account for them
in a jiffy."

Marjolin carried away a box containing some fifty pigeons, and Claude
and Florent followed him. Squatting upon the ground near one of the
water-taps, he placed the box by his side. Then he laid a framework