A thin, bent woman turned her one good eye, and recognizing a daily opponent, rose, drawing in her lips and nodding.
"Eh, they are dear this morning, but you have brought your muscadin. You can pay well to-day after the way you cheated me yesterday."
"He is my brother," Louison said coldly, turning over the flowers.
"Oui dà!" La Mère Boboche dropped an anxious glance at her counter. "Isn't he handsome, though, her muscadin? What arms, what a chest, eh? Solid that!"
Louison, observing that Barabant was uneasy under this chaffing, was about to interpose when a shrill voice rose in taunt from the opposite stall.
"What a monster of immorality! Allons, la mère, it's time you forgot such things."
Instantly the two enemies let loose at each other floods of vituperation.
"Listen to the evil tongue!"
"Hark to the old hen, what a cackle!"
"Corrupter of youth!"