When old Madame Chantemesse realised the turn that things were taking she wrathfully upbraided Cadine and struck out vigorously at her with her broom.  But the hussy only laughed and dodged the blows, and then hied off to her lover.  And gradually the markets became their home, their manger, their aviary, where they lived and loved amidst the meat, the butter, the vegetables, and the feathers.

They discovered another little paradise in the pavilion where butter, eggs, and cheese were sold wholesale.  Enormous walls of empty baskets were here piled up every morning, and amidst these Cadine and Marjolin burrowed and hollowed out a dark lair for themselves.  A mere partition of osier-work separated them from the market crowd, whose loud voices rang out all around them.  They often shook with laughter when people, without the least suspicion of their presence, stopped to talk together a few yards away from them.  On these occasions they would contrive peepholes, and spy through them, and when cherries were in season Cadine tossed the stones in the faces of all the old women who passed along—­a pastime which amused them the more as the startled old crones could never make out whence the hail of cherry-stones had come.  They also prowled about the depths of the cellars, knowing every gloomy corner of them, and contriving to get through the most carefully locked gates.  One of their favourite amusements was to visit the track of the subterranean railway, which had been laid under the markets, and which those who planned the latter had intended to connect with the different goods’ stations of Paris.  Sections of this railway were laid beneath each of the covered ways, between the cellars of each pavilion; the work, indeed, was in such an advanced state that turn-tables had been put into position at all the points of intersection, and were in readiness for use.  After much examination, Cadine and Marjolin had at last succeeded in discovering a loose plank in the hoarding which enclosed the track, and they had managed to convert it into a door, by which they could easily gain access to the line.  There they were quite shut off from the world, though they could hear the continuous rumbling of the street traffic over their heads.

The line stretched through deserted vaults, here and there illumined by a glimmer of light filtering through iron gratings, while in certain dark corners gas jets were burning.  And Cadine and Marjolin rambled about as in the secret recesses of some castle of their own, secure from all interruption, and rejoicing in the buzzy silence, the murky glimmer, and subterranean secrecy, which imparted a touch of melodrama to their experiences.  All sorts of smells were wafted through the hoarding from the neighbouring cellars; the musty smell of vegetables, the pungency of fish, the overpowering stench of cheese, and the warm reek of poultry.