hours feels tired — since five this morning have I
been at my bench, and now nothing to eat, the food
is not ready!5 Turning, he blundered out of the
room,

'He looks tired, that is true enough/ thought
Marie. Then she snatched Kahn's announcement
away from Loup, opened the door of the stove, and
burnt it.

But Christophe sat as stiff as a ramrod in his chair,
for his eyes were suddenly aching with tears: if he
moved by so much as an inch they must fall, and at
his age one did not shed tears, it was childish.

Much secrecy had been observed by Kahn with
regard to the arrangement of his fine new shop and
the dressing of his two spacious plate-glass windows.
The goods, when they had come out of their vans,
had been swathed like so many sacred mummies, and
once they had entered his premises all the doors had
been locked and the blinds drawn down before any-
one had started unpacking.
"No doubt with his grand electricity he can well
afford to dispense with mere daylight/ people had
jeered; but nevertheless there was quite a large crowd
in front of the shop a little before the hour of the
opening.
Two strokes from the clock and up went the blinds,
while the doors were flung wide with a princely
flourish. And there stood the youth of the circulars
with a big bobbing bundle of air balloons, bearing
the inscription: 'Galeries Kahn3 on their taut,
rotund sides of many colours.
Trenez, Madame! Prenez, Messieurs et Dames,
pour vos enfants. Voila, ma petite! Encore un?
Encore deux? Mais voila! Joli, hein?5 And he
dexterously disentangled the bundle,
245