Then came another interval.

"Well, tell me what you will take."

"Ten francs. You know that well enough already; I told you so before.
But what have you done with your Jules this morning, La Sarriette?"

The young woman began to laugh as she took a handful of small change out
of her pocket.

"Oh," she replied, "Jules is still in bed. He says that men were not
intended to work."

She paid for the two baskets, and carried them into the fruit pavilion,
which had just been opened. The market buildings still retained their
gloom-wrapped aspect of airy fragility, streaked with the thousand lines
of light that gleamed from the venetian shutters. People were beginning
to pass along the broad covered streets intersecting the pavilions, but
the more distant buildings still remained deserted amidst the increasing
buzz of life on the footways. By Saint Eustache the bakers and wine
sellers were taking down their shutters, and the ruddy shops, with their
gas lights flaring, showed like gaps of fire in the gloom in which the
grey house-fronts were yet steeped. Florent noticed a baker's shop on
the left-hand side of the Rue Montorgueil, replete and golden with its
last baking, and fancied he could scent the pleasant smell of the hot
bread. It was now half past four.

Madame Francois by this time had disposed of nearly all her stock. She
had only a few bunches of carrots left when Lacaille once more made his