himself for having been merry; but his natural light-heartedness soon
gained the mastery, and he laughed afresh in unconscious happiness.

He now learned his uncle's business, from which he derived even more
enjoyment than from cookery. Gradelle told him, however, that he must
not neglect his pots and pans, that it was rare to find a pork butcher
who was also a good cook, and that he had been lucky in serving in a
restaurant before coming to the shop. Gradelle, moreover, made full use
of his nephew's acquirements, employed him to cook the dinners sent out
to certain customers, and placed all the broiling, and the preparation
of pork chops garnished with gherkins in his special charge. As the
young man was of real service to him, he grew fond of him after his
own fashion, and would nip his plump arms when he was in a good humour.
Gradelle had sold the scanty furniture of the room in the Rue Royer
Collard and retained possession of the proceeds--some forty francs or
so--in order, said he, to prevent the foolish lad, Quenu, from making
ducks and drakes of the cash. After a time, however, he allowed his
nephew six francs a month a pocket-money.

Quenu now became quite happy, in spite of the emptiness of his purse and
the harshness with which he was occasionally treated. He liked to have
life doled out to him; Florent had treated him too much like an indolent
girl. Moreover, he had made a friend at his uncle's. Gradelle, when his
wife died, had been obliged to engage a girl to attend to the shop, and
had taken care to choose a healthy and attractive one, knowing that a
good-looking girl would set off his viands and help to tempt custom.
Amongst his acquaintances was a widow, living in the Rue Cuvier, near
the Jardin des Plantes, whose deceased husband had been postmaster at
Plassans, the seat of a sub-prefecture in the south of France. This
lady, who lived in a very modest fashion on a small annuity, had brought