OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 

 district would buy bread enough, anyhow, to appease the 

 sharpest-set morning appetite. Saint Eustache, as every 

 one knows, is close to the Halles Centrales, the great food 

 emporium of Parisa kind of combined Smithfield, Billings- 

 gate, Covent Garden, and Leadenhall Market. The now 

 frantic owner of the two pence was darting about the 

 galleries in search of the first bread-stall, when he was 

 arrested by a float- 

 ing savour, truly 

 ambrosial. As he 

 stopped and invo- 

 luntarily, if quite i 

 obviously, sniffed, a 

 tempting voice rose 

 beside him, engag- 

 ingly familiar : "Out, 

 elle est bonne, ce 

 matin. Tu en veux, 

 beau garcon ? " And 

 so saying, a fat smiling dame de la Halle, with an alert 

 eye to business, plunged a ladle into a deep iron marmite 

 and filled a generous-sized white bowl, something a trifle 

 under a pint in capacity, with a steaming brown pottage, 

 that in the circumstances was positively irresistible : 

 "Combien, la mere ? " asked the truant scholar, falling into the 

 speech suitable to the place, and fingering the two modest 

 coins with doubt and anxiety, even as might a ravening 

 Villon, a destitute Gringoire. 



"Combien, mon ptit gros ? Mais an sou, toujours ! Et au 

 fromage" changing her tone to mock deference as one 

 addressing a client of importance, "aufromage, dix centimes, 

 98 



