She got angry.

‘In the place of Ramon then, exactly the one that I wanted for you: and what about Ramon? Retired?’

He stammered: ‘Retired’.

She got raging angry, and the bonnet slipped on to her shoulder.

‘It’s all done for, you see, that old office of yours, nothing to be done in it nowadays. And what’s his name, your purser?’

‘Bonassot.’

She took the Marine Year Book, which she always had at hand, and looked it up. ‘Bonnasot—Toulon—born 1851—cadet-purser 1871, under-purser 1875. Has he been at sea, that fellow?’

At this question Caravan brightened up. A fit of gaiety seized him which shook his stomach.

‘Just as Balin has, just like Balin, his chief.’ And he added, with a louder laugh, an old joke that all the Ministry found delicious. ‘One mustn’t send them by water to inspect the Naval Station at Pont-du-Jour, they would be ill on the paddle boats.’

But she remained serious, as if she had not heard; then she murmured, slowly scratching her chin:

‘If only we had a Member of Parliament up our sleeve? When the House knows all that goes on there, the Minister will give a jump—’

Shouts broke out on the stair, interrupting her sentence. Marie Louise and Philip Augustus, who were coming back from the gutters, were bestowing on one another, from step to step, kicks and slaps. Their mother rushed out, furious, and taking each by an arm, she flung them into the room, shaking them vigorously.

As soon as they saw their father, they rushed on him and he kissed them tenderly, at length: then, sitting down, he took them on his knees, and chatted with them.

Philip Augustus was a nasty little urchin, ill combed, dirty from head to foot, with a stupid face. Marie Louise was already like her mother, spoke like her, repeating her words, even imitating her gestures. She too said, ‘What’s new at the Ministry?’

He answered her gaily.

‘Your friend Ramon, who comes to dinner here every month, is going to leave us, little daughter. There’s a new under-chief in his place.’

She raised her eyes to her father, and with the pity of a precocious child, ‘That’s another that has been promoted over your head, then?’

He stopped laughing and did not answer; then, to create a diversion, addressing his wife who was now cleaning the windows:

‘Mamma’s quite well upstairs?’

Madame Caravan stopped rubbing, turned round, set straight her bonnet which had quite got down her back, and, with a trembling lip:

‘Oh, yes, talk about your mother! She has played me a nice trick! Just think: Madame Lebaudin, the barber’s wife, came up just now to borrow a packet of starch from me, and, as I was out, your mother