She and Claude became old chums at once.
'Call him Claude, my darling. And you, old man, call her Henriette. No
madame nor monsieur, or I shall fine you five sous each time.'
They laughed, and she scampered away, being wanted in the kitchen to
look after a southern dish, a _bouillabaisse_, with which she wished
to surprise the Plassans friend. She had obtained the recipe from her
husband himself, and had become marvellously deft at it, so he said.
'Your wife is charming,' said Claude, 'and I see she spoils you.'
But Sandoz, seated at his table, with his elbows among such pages of
the book he was working at as he had written that morning, began to
talk of the first novel of his series, which he had published in
October. Ah! they had treated his poor book nicely! It had been a
throttling, a butchering, all the critics yelling at his heels, a
broadside of imprecations, as if he had murdered people in a wood. He
himself laughed at it, excited rather than otherwise, for he had
sturdy shoulders and the quiet bearing of a toiler who knows what he's
after.
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