eat thing for me. I know lots of
people who would--what? Oh, you don't? Oh!"

As the young man in the wet mackintosh retreated, the clerk with a
blonde moustache made a hungry grab at the novel. He continued to read:
"Handkerchief fall in a puddle. Silvere sprang forward. He picked up the
handkerchief. Their eyes met. As he returned the handkerchief, their
hands touched. The young girl smiled. Silvere was in ecstacies. 'Ah, my
God!'

"A baker opposite was quarrelling over two sous with an old woman.

"A grey-haired veteran with a medal upon his breast and a butcher's boy
were watching a dog-fight. The smell of dead animals came from adjacent
slaughter-houses. The letters on the sign over the tinsmith's shop on
the corner shone redly like great clots of blood. It was hell on roller
skates."

Here the clerk skipped some seventeen chapters descriptive of a number
of intricate money transactions, the moles on the neck of a Parisian
dressmaker, the process of making brandy, the milk-leg of Silvere's
aunt, life in the coal-pits, and scenes in the Chamber of Deputies. In
these chapters the reputation of the architect of Charlemagne's palace
was vindicated, and it was explained why Heloise's grandmother didn't
keep her stockings pulled up.

Then he proceeded: "Heloise went to the country. The next day Silvere
followed. They met in the fields. The young girl had donned the garb of
the peasants. She blushed. She looked fresh, fair, innocent. Silvere
felt faint with rapture. 'Ah, my God!'

"She had been running. Out of breath, she sank down in the hay. She held
out her hand. 'I am so glad to see you.' Silvere was enchanted at this
vision. He bended toward her. Suddenly he burst into tears. 'I love you!
I love you! I love you!' he stammered.

"A row of red and white shirts hung on a line some distance away. The
third shirt from the left had a button off the neck. A cat on the rear
steps of a cottage near the shirt was drinking milk from a platter. The
north-east portion of the platter had a crack in it.

"'Heloise!' Silvere was murmuring hoarsely. He leaned toward her until
his warm breath moved the curls on her neck. 'Heloise!' murmured Jean."

"Young man," said an elderly gentleman with a dripping umbrella to the
clerk with a blonde moustache, "have you any night-shirts open front and
back? Eh? Night-shirts open front and back, I said. D'you hear, eh?
_Night-shirts open front and back._ Well, then, why didn't you say so