"What did you think of her?"

Maurice simply replied, "Delicious!" and changed the conversation.




CHAPTER VI

DREAMS OF LOVE

Solemn moment approached for the two friends. They were to take their
examinations for graduation. Upon the days when M. Violette--they now
called him at the office "Father Violette," he had grown so aged and
decrepit--was not too much "consoled" in the cafe in the Rue du Four, and
when he was less silent and gloomy than usual, he would say to his son,
after the soup:

"Do you know, Amedee, I shall not be easy in my mind until you have
received your degree. Say what they may, it leads to everything."

To everything indeed! M. Violette had a college friend upon whom all the
good marks had been showered, who, having been successively schoolmaster,
journalist, theatrical critic, a boarder in Mazas prison, insurance
agent, director of an athletic ring--he quoted Homer in his harangue--at
present pushed back the curtains at the entrance to the Ambigu, and
waited for his soup at the barracks gate, holding out an old tomato-can
to be filled.