“Yes—yes?”
“Well, monsieur, the gentleman, when he saw what the dog had done, threw the rose away behind his back into some bushes; the lady did not see, she was talking and laughing.”
“What day was this?”
“The day before Atalanta died, monsieur.”
“What was the gentleman like?”
“Very ugly, monsieur, and pitted with the smallpox.”
“And the lady?”
“Oh, I don’t know, monsieur, but she walked with a limp.”
“Ah, well,” said Lavenne, “dogs may eat roses, but roses do not poison dogs; so I would advise you to forget what you saw, or the ugly gentleman may be angry with you. You seem a bright boy, and here is something to buy sweets with. You are learning to be a cook, I suppose?”
“Monsieur,” said the child, gravely, “I am a cook. I can lard a fowl and make an omelette and a mayonnaise, and I have committed to memory the rules and recipes of twenty-three sauces out of the two hundred and twenty-three that my father knows. Yet, all the same, I must serve my apprenticeship as a scullion, cleaning pots and pans and preparing vegetables and fish and game. But I do not grumble.”