e upon the
tops of the low walls. They met very few people; now and then some
poor person, a woman in a cap dragging along a crying child, a workman
burdened with his tools, a belated invalid, and sometimes in the
middle of the sidewalk, in a cloud of dust, a flock of exhausted sheep,
bleating desperately, and nipped in the legs by dogs hurrying them
toward the abattoir. The father and son would walk straight ahead until
it was dark under the trees; then they would retrace their steps, the
sharp air stinging their faces. Those ancient hanging street-lamps,
the tragic lanterns of the time of the Terror, were suspended at long
intervals in the avenue, mingling their dismal twinkle with the pale
gleams of the green twilight sky.

These sorrowful promenades with his melancholy companion would commonly
end a tiresome day at Batifol's school. Amedee was now in the "seventh,"
and knew already that the phrase, "the will of God," could not be
turned into Latin by 'bonitas divina', and that the word 'cornu' was not
declinable. These long, silent hours spent at his school-desk, or beside
a person absorbed in grief, might have become fatal to the child's
disposition, had it not been for his good friends, the Gerards. He went
to see them as often as he was able, a spare hour now and then, and
most of the day on Thursdays. The engraver's house was always full of
good-nature and gayety, and Amedee felt comfortable and really happy
there.

The good Gerards, besides their Louise and Maria, to say nothing of
Amedee, whom they looked upon as one of the family, had now taken charge
of a fourth child, a little girl, named Rosine, who was precisely the
same age as their youngest.

This was the way it happened. Above the Gerards, in one of the mansards
upon the sixth floor, lived a printer named Combarieu, with his wife or
mistress--the concierge did not know which, nor did it matter much. The
woman had just deserted him, leaving a child of eight years. One could
expect nothing better of a creature who, according to the concierge, fed
her husband upon pork-butcher's meat, to spare herself the trouble
of getting dinner, and passed the entire day with uncombed hair, in a
dressing-sacque, reading novels, and telling her fortune with cards.
The grocer's daughter declared she had met her one evening, at a
dancing-hall, seated with a fireman before a salad-bowl full of wine,
prepared in the French fashion.

During the day Combarieu, although a