'Well, I don't mind, my boy, if it pleases you,' said Charles Doloir. 'And I'll do it also for your sake, Monsieur Froment, for it pains me at times to think of how I used to worry you.'
Charles, after marrying Marthe Dupuis, his employer's daughter, had for a long time been managing the business. He had a son named Marcel, who was about the same age as Adrien, and who, having married a carpenter's daughter, Laure Dumont, had become a contractor for house carpentry.
'I am going to your father's,' Charles resumed, addressing his nephew; 'I have an appointment with Marcel about some work. Come with me, for if you build this house you will have some work to give them as well.... And you will come also, Monsieur Froment? It will please you, perhaps, to meet some more of your old pupils.'
'Yes, indeed it will,' Marc answered gaily. 'Besides, we shall be able to settle the specifications.'
'The specifications! Oh! we have not got to that point yet,' Adrien retorted. 'Moreover, my father isn't an enthusiast.... But no matter; I'll go to see him.'
Auguste Doloir, thanks to the friendly protection of Darras; the former mayor, had become a building contractor in a small way. After his father's death he had taken his mother to live with him, and since the demolition of the Rue Plaisir he had been residing in the new avenue, where he occupied a ground floor flanked by a large yard, in which he stored some of his materials. The lodging was very clean, very healthy, and full of sunlight.
When Marc found himself in the bright dining-room, face to face with Madame Doloir the elder, some more memories of the past returned to him. The old woman, now sixty-nine years old, had retained the demeanour of a good and prudent housewife, one who was instinctively conservative, and allowed neither her husband nor her children to compromise themselves by dabbling in politics. Marc also recalled her husband, Doloir the mason, that big, fair, ignorant fellow, good-natured in his way, but spoilt by barrack-life, haunted as he was by idiotic notions of the army being disorganised by those who knew no country, and of France being sold to the foreigners by the Jews. One day, unfortunately, he had been brought home dead on a stretcher, after falling from a scaffolding; and it seemed as if he had been drinking previously, though Madame Doloir would not acknowledge it, for she was one of those who never admit the existence of family failings.
On perceiving Marc she at once said to him: 'Ah! monsieur, we are no longer young; we are very old acquaintances indeed. Auguste and Charles were not more than eight and six years old when I first saw you.'
'Quite so, madame; I well remember it. I called on you, on behalf of my colleague Simon, to ask you to let your boys tell the truth if they should be questioned.'