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Quenu had nodded his head in approbation, and an interval of silence followed. Leon was still mincing. Pauline, however, after remaining thoughtful for a little while, mounted upon Florent's feet again, and in her clear voice exclaimed: "I say, cousin, tell me the story of the gentleman who was eaten by the wild beasts!"
Auguste had got so far in his narrative when the fifth floor was reached; however, he still detained Florent, in order to sound the praises of Madame Quenu, who had consented to send for Augustine Landois to replace an assistant who had turned out badly. He himself was now thoroughly acquainted with his part of the business, and his cousin was perfecting herself in shop management.
Madame Lecoeur and La Sarriette, however, had burst into exclamations of astonishment: "It wasn't possible, surely! What had he done to be sent to the galleys? Could anyone, now, have ever suspected that Madame Quenu, whose virtue was the pride of the whole neighbourhood, would choose a convict for a lover?" "Ah, but you don't understand at all!" cried the old maid impatiently.
When this was all settled, Quenu insisted upon his brother making a thorough inspection of the rooms, and would not spare him the examination of a single stool.
Quenu returned home with an uneasy conscience. He opened the three or four doors on his way to bed as gently as possible, walking on tip-toe and stretching out his hands as he passed through the sitting-room, to avoid a collision with any of the furniture. The whole house seemed to be asleep.
If he goes on at this rate his fifty thousand francs will last him barely four months. And yet it took old Gradelle forty years to put his fortune together!" "It's all your own fault!" cried Quenu. "There was no occasion for you to say anything to him about the money." Lisa gave her husband a severe glance. "It is his own," she said; "and he is entitled to take it all.
Lisa's only worry in the matter was the terrible blow that the arrest would prove to poor Quenu. She was much afraid that if he learned that the police were in the house, he would spoil everything by his tears; so she made Auguste swear to observe the most rigid silence on the subject.
However, on the footway down below Florent presently heard a sound of voices, the laughter of happy folks. Then the door of the passage was closed noisily. It was Quenu and Lisa coming home from the theatre.
I've given up dealing with them," said she. "I wouldn't buy a bit of black-pudding from them now on any account. They had a dead man in their kitchen, you know." Quenu wept with vexation. The story of Gradelle's death in the kitchen was clearly getting about; and his nephew began to blush before his customers when he saw them sniffing his wares too closely.
Then as she wrapped them up she inquired, "Can I give you anything else?" "Well, yes," replied La Sarriette; "since I'm about it, I think I'll have a pound of lard. I'm awfully fond of fried potatoes; I can make a breakfast off a penn'orth of potatoes and a bunch of radishes. Yes, I'll have a pound of lard, please, Madame Quenu." Lisa placed a sheet of stout paper in the pan of the scales.
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