markets; and he used the expression so often that it clung to him as a
nickname. He became known all over the place as "Muche." It was Muche
here, there and everywhere; no one called him anything else. He was to
be met with in every nook; in out-of-the-way corners of the offices in
the auction pavilion; among the piles of oyster baskets, and betwixt the
buckets where the refuse was thrown. With a pinky fairness of skin, he
was like a young barbel frisking and gliding about in deep water. He
was as fond of running, streaming water as any young fry. He was
ever dabbling in the pools in the alleys. He wetted himself with the
drippings from the tables, and when no one was looking often slyly
turned on the taps, rejoicing in the bursting gush of water. But it was
especially beside the fountains near the cellar steps that his mother
went to seek him in the evening, and she would bring him thence with his
hands quite blue, and his shoes, and even his pockets, full of water.

At seven years old Muche was as pretty as an angel, and as coarse in his
manners as any carter. He had curly chestnut hair, beautiful eyes,
and an innocent-looking mouth which gave vent to language that even a
gendarme would have hesitated to use. Brought up amidst all the ribaldry
and profanity of the markets, he had the whole vocabulary of the place
on the tip of his tongue. With his hands on his hips he often mimicked
Grandmother Mehudin in her anger, and at these times the coarsest and
vilest expressions would stream from his lips in a voice of crystalline
purity that might have belonged to some little chorister chanting the
_Ave Maria_. He would even try to assume a hoarse roughness of tone,
seek to degrade and taint that exquisite freshness of childhood which
made him resemble a _bambino_ on the Madonna's knees. The fish-wives
laughed at him till they cried; and he, encouraged, could scarcely say a
couple of words without rapping out an oath. But in spite of all this he
still remained charming, understanding nothing of the dirt amidst which