swimming round the aquarium in the window.

Gavard entered the shop. With an air of great importance he went to
fetch Quenu from the kitchen. Then he seated himself upon a small
marble-topped table, while Florent remained on his chair and Lisa behind
the counter; Quenu meantime leaning his back against a side of pork.
And thereupon Gavard announced that he had at last found a situation for
Florent. They would be vastly amused when they heard what it was, and
the Government would be nicely caught.

But all at once he stopped short, for a passing neighbour, Mademoiselle
Saget, having seen such a large party gossiping together at the
Quenu-Gradelles', had opened the door and entered the shop. Carrying
her everlasting black ribbonless straw hat, which appropriately cast a
shadow over her prying white face, she saluted the men with a slight bow
and Lisa with a sharp smile.

She was an acquaintance of the family, and still lived in the house
in the Rue Pirouette where she had resided for the last forty years,
probably on a small private income; but of that she never spoke. She
had, however, one day talked of Cherbourg, mentioning that she had been
born there. Nothing further was ever known of her antecedents. All her
conversation was about other people; she could tell the whole story of
their daily lives, even to the number of things they sent to be
washed each month; and she carried her prying curiosity concerning her
neighbours' affairs so far as to listen behind their doors and open
their letters. Her tongue was feared from the Rue Saint Denis to the
Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and from the Rue Saint Honore to the Rue
Mauconseil. All day long she went ferreting about with her empty bag,
pretending that she was marketing, but in reality buying nothing, as her