"You mean black bread," Gavroche remarked, with a calm and cold disdain. "White bread, my lad; I stand treat."
The baker could not refrain from smiling, and while cutting some white bread gazed at them in a compassionate way which offended Gavroche.
"Well, baker's man," he said, "what is there about us that you measure us in that way?"
When the bread was cut, the baker put the sou in the till, and Gavroche said to the two boys,—
"Grub away."
The boys looked at him in surprise, and Gavroche burst into a laugh.
"Oh, yes, that's true, they don't understand yet, they are so little."
And he continued, "Eat."
At the same time he gave each of them a lump of bread. Thinking that the elder, who appeared to him more worthy of his conversation, merited some special encouragement, and ought to have any hesitation about satisfying his hunger removed, he added, as he gave him the larger lump,—
"Shove that into your gun."