m on the
shoulder.

"Gavard!" he exclaimed.

The other raised his head and stared with surprise at Florent's tall
black figure, which he did not at first recognise. Then all at once:
"What! is it you?" he cried, as if overcome with amazement. "Is it
really you?"

He all but let his geese fall, and seemed unable to master his surprise.
On catching sight, however, of his sister-in-law and Mademoiselle Saget,
who were watching the meeting at a distance, he began to walk on again.

"Come along; don't let us stop here," he said. "There are too many eyes
and tongues about."

When they were in the covered way they began to chat. Florent related
how he had gone to the Rue Pirouette, at which Gavard seemed much amused
and laughed heartily. Then he told Florent that his brother Quenu had
moved from that street and had reopened his pork shop close by, in the
Rue Rambuteau, just in front of the markets. And afterwards he was again
highly amused to hear that Florent had been wandering about all that
morning with Claude Lantier, an odd kind of fish, who, strangely enough,
said he, was Madame Quenu's nephew. Thus chatting, Gavard was on the
point of taking Florent straight to the pork shop, but, on hearing that
he had returned to France with false papers, he suddenly assumed all
sorts of solemn and mysterious airs, and insisted upon walking some
fifteen paces in front of him, to avoid attracting attention. After
passing through the poultry pavilion, where he hung his geese up in his
stall, he began to cross the Rue Rambuteau, still followed by Florent;
and then, halting in the middle of the road, he glanced significantly
towards a large and well-appointed pork shop.

The sun was obliquely enfilading the Rue Rambuteau, lighting up the
fronts of the houses, in the midst of which the Rue Pirouette formed a
dark gap. At the other end the great pile of Saint Eustache glittered
brightly in the sunlight like some huge reliquary. And right through
the crowd, from the distant crossway, an army of street-sweepers was
advancing in file down the road, the brooms swishing rhythmically,
while scavengers provided with forks pitched the collected refuse into
tumbrels, which at intervals of a score of paces halted with a noise
like the chattering of broken pots. However, all Florent's attention was
concentrated on the pork shop, open and radiant in the rising sun.

It stood very near the corner of the Rue Pirouette and provided quite
a feast