Matters then became uproarious. Boiling over with rage and brandishing
their fists, both mother and daughter fairly exploded; while the poor
little servant, quite bewildered by their voices, the one hoarse and
the other shrill, which belaboured her with insults as though they were
battledores and she a shuttlecock, sobbed on more bitterly than ever.

"Be off with you! Your Madame Taboureau would like to be half as fresh
as that fish is! She'd like us to sew it up for her, no doubt!"

"A whole fish for ten francs! What'll she want next!"

Then came coarse words and foul accusations. Had the servant been
the most worthless of her sex she could not have been more bitterly
upbraided.

Florent, whom the market keeper had gone to fetch, made his appearance
when the quarrel was at its hottest. The whole pavilion seemed to be
in a state of insurrection. The fish-wives, who manifest the keenest
jealousy of each other when the sale of a penny herring is in question,
display a united front when a quarrel arises with a buyer. They sang the
popular old ditty, "The baker's wife has heaps of crowns, which cost her
precious little"; they stamped their feet, and goaded the Mehudins
as though the latter were dogs which they were urging on to bite and
devour. And there were even some, having stalls at the other end of
the alley, who rushed up wildly, as though they meant to spring at the
chignon of the poor little woman, she meantime being quite submerged by
the flood of insulting abuse poured upon her.

"Return mademoiselle her ten francs," said Florent sternly, when he had
learned what had taken place.