“Ah, by the way, there he is, your brother-in-law!” suddenly exclaimed Mademoiselle Saget, lowering her voice.

The two women turned and gazed at a man who was crossing the road to enter the covered way close by.

“I’m in a hurry,” murmured Madame Lecoeur.  “I left my stall without anyone to look after it; and, besides, I don’t want to speak to him.”

However, Florent also had mechanically turned round and glanced at the individual referred to.  This was a short, squarely-built man, with a cheery look and grey, close-cut brush-like hair.  Under each arm he was carrying a fat goose, whose head hung down and flapped against his legs.  And then all at once Florent made a gesture of delight.  Forgetting his fatigue, he ran after the man, and, overtaking him, tapped him 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.