and protruded his jaws.  Presently, seemingly lashed into a state of frenzy by the flood of figures that spurted from his lips, he sprang upon a stool, where, with his mouth twisted spasmodically and his hair streaming behind him, he could force nothing more than unintelligible hisses from his parched throat.  And in the meantime, up above, the collector of municipal dues, a little old man, muffled in a collar of imitation astrachan, remained with nothing but his nose showing under his black velvet skullcap.  And the tall, dark-complexioned female clerk, with eyes shining calmly in her face, which had been slightly reddened by the cold, sat on her high wooden chair, quietly writing, apparently unruffled by the continuous rattle which came from the hunchback below her.

“That fellow Logre is wonderful,” muttered Monsieur Verlaque with a smile.  “He is the best crier in the markets.  I believe he could make people buy boot soles in the belief they were fish!”

Then he and Florent went back into the pavilion.  As they again passed the spot where the fresh water fish was being sold by auction, and where the bidding seemed much quieter, Monsieur Verlaque explained that French river fishing was in a bad way.[*] The crier here, a fair, sorry-looking fellow, who scarcely moved his arms, was disposing of some lots of eels and crawfish in a monotonous voice, while the assistants fished fresh supplies out of the stone basins with their short-handled nets.

[*] M. Zola refers, of course, to the earlier years of the Second Empire.  Under the present republican Government, which has largely fostered fish culture, matters have considerably improved.—­Translator.

However, the crowd round the salesmen’s desks was still increasing.  Monsieur Verlaque played his part as Florent’s instructor in the most conscientious manner, clearing the way by means of his elbows, and guiding his successor through the busiest parts.  The upper-class retail dealers were there, quietly waiting for some of the finer fish, or loading the porters with their purchases of turbot, tunny, and salmon.  The street-hawkers who had clubbed together to buy lots of herrings and small flat-fish were dividing them on the pavement.  There were also some people of the smaller middle class, from distant parts of the city, who had come down at four o’clock in the morning to buy a really fresh fish, and had ended by allowing some enormous lot, costing from forty to fifty francs, to be knocked down to them, with the result that they would be obliged to spend the whole day in getting their friends and acquaintances to take the surplus off their hands.  Every now and then some violent pushing would force a gap through part of the crowd.  A fish-wife, who had got tightly jammed, freed herself, shaking her fists and pouring out a torrent of abuse.  Then a compact mass of people again collected, and Florent, almost suffocated, declared that he had seen quite enough, and understood all that was necessary.