who, as everyone knows, wag web-footed like the geese and ducks.

His penthouse was opposite Saint Benoit le Betourne between Mistress
Gilles the haberdasher at the _Three Virgins_ and M. Blaizot,
the bookseller at the sign of _Saint Catherine,_ not far from
the _Little Bacchus,_ the gate of which, decorated with vine
branches, was at the corner of the Rue des Cordiers. He loved me
very much, and when, after supper, I lay in my little bed, he took
my hand in his, lifted one after the other of my fingers, beginning
with the thumb, and said:

"This one has killed him, this one has plucked him, this one has
fricasseed him and that one has eaten him, and the little
_Riquiqui_ had nothing at all. Sauce, sauce, sauce," he used to
add, tickling the hollow of my hand with my own little finger.

And mightily he laughed, and I laughed too, dropping off to sleep,
and my mother used to affirm that the smile still remained on my
lips on the following morning.

My father was a good cookshop-keeper and feared God. For this he
carried on holidays the banner of the Cooks' Guild, on which a fine-
looking St Laurence was embroidered, with his grill and a golden
palm. He used to say to me:

"Jacquot, thy mother is a holy and worthy woman."

He liked to repeat this sentence frequently. True, my mother went to
church every Sunday with a prayer-book printed in big type. She
could hardly read small print, which, as she said, drew the eyes out