Jump to content

Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (French I).djvu/76

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.
ANOTHER GAMBLER.
75

of the building where they manufacture those aerated waters. I should like to know if the little boys of the present day still play as we did in that brook, and find bits of colored glass in it. What lots of such glass you and I picked up when your nurse Miette and my nurse Mion sat talking on a bench that was three trees off."'

"If I could not bear the sadness of my old uncle's eyes," continued Claude, "it was for stronger reasons than you have ever suspected. Ah! I'm talking about old, old matters. I have often felt tempted to tell you about them, but I have never dared." Then, as my face expressed, no doubt, a keen, though silent curiosity, he leaned his elbow on the arm of his chair and his forehead on his hand, covering his eyes, in the attitude of one who is striving to recall the past. "Do you remember," he said at last, "the little shop of old Père Commolet, the toy-seller?"

"Behind the cathedral, at the further end of the Rue des Notaires; you turn to the left into a long, narrow alley darkened by Gothic arches. We used to call it Cold Street. Gargoyles were overhead, with other hideous sculptures. On rainy days it was one long cascade, and when the wind blew how it did send you round the corner by the church!"

"Yes, but don't you remember how old Commolet's shop window brightened that gloomy place for all the children in town? A never-