Amazed though he was, Florent felt quite interested in the odd little fellow.  The handsome Norman retained her surly bearing, but allowed her son to frequent the inspector’s office without a word of objection.  Florent consequently concluded that he had the mother’s permission to receive the boy, and every afternoon he asked him in; by degrees forming the idea of turning him into a steady, respectable young fellow.  He could almost fancy that his brother Quenu had grown little again, and that they were both in the big room in the Rue Royer-Collard once more.  The life which his self-sacrificing nature pictured to him as perfect happiness was a life spent with some young being who would never grow up, whom he could go on teaching for ever, and in whose innocence he might still love his fellow man.  On the third day of his acquaintance with Muche he brought an alphabet to the office, and the lad delighted him by the intelligence he manifested.  He learned his letters with all the sharp precocity which marks the Parisian street arab, and derived great amusement from the woodcuts illustrating the alphabet.

He found opportunities, too, for plenty of fine fun in the little office, where the stove still remained the chief attraction and a source of endless enjoyment.  At first he cooked potatoes and chestnuts at it, but presently these seemed insipid, and he thereupon stole some gudgeons from his aunt Claire, roasted them one by one, suspended from a string in front of the glowing fire, and then devoured them with gusto, though he had no bread.  One day he even brought a carp with him; but it was impossible to roast it sufficiently, and it made such a smell in the office that both window and door had to be thrown open.  Sometimes, when the odour of all these culinary operations became too strong, Florent would throw the fish into the street, but as a rule he only laughed.  By the end of a couple of months Muche was able to read fairly well, and his copy-books did him credit.

Meantime, every evening the lad wearied his mother with his talk about his good friend Florent.  His good friend Florent had drawn him pictures of trees and of men in huts, said he.  His good friend Florent waved his arm and said that men would be far better if they all knew how to read.  And at last La Normande heard so much about Florent that she seemed to be almost intimate with this man against whom she harboured so much rancour.  One day she shut Muche up at home to prevent him from going to the inspector’s, but he cried so bitterly that she gave him his liberty again on the following morning.  There was very little determination about her, in spite of her broad shoulders and bold looks.  When the lad told her how nice and warm he had been in the office, and came back to her with his clothes quite dry, she felt a sort of vague gratitude, a pleasure in knowing that he had found a shelter-place where he could sit with his feet in front of a fire.  Later on, she was