nonchalantly in his armchair, was not without pretension; in spite of his
black coat with the "take-me-out-of-pawn" air, polished his nails, and
only opened his mouth at times to utter a reprimand or pronounce sentence
of punishment.

This was school, then! Amedee recalled the pleasant reading-lessons that
the eldest of the Gerards had given him--that good Louise, so wise and
serious and only ten years old, pointing out his letters to him in a
picture alphabet with a knitting-needle, always so patient and kind.
The child was overcome at the very first with a disgust for school,
and gazed through the window which lighted the room at the noiselessly
moving, large, indented leaves of the melancholy sycamore.




CHAPTER III

PAPA AND MAMMA GERARD

One, two, three years rolled by without anything very remarkable
happening to the inhabitants of the fifth story.

The quarter had not changed, and it still had the appearance of a
suburban faubourg. They had just erected, within gunshot of the house
where the Violettes and Gerards lived, a large five-story building,
upon whose roof still trembled in the wind the masons' withered bouquets.
But that was all. In front of them, on the lot "For Sale," enclosed by
rotten boards, where one could always see tufts of nettles and a goat
tied to a stake, and upon the high wall above which by the end of April