Beauchene, who was
accompanying them as far as the gate, bareheaded and ever sturdy and
victorious, gayly exclaimed to his wife:
"Give the youngster a good spin on his legs! Let him take in all the
fresh air he can. There's nothing like that and good food to make a man."
Mathieu, on hearing this, stopped short. "Has Maurice been poorly again?"
he inquired.
"Oh, no!" hastily replied the boy's mother, with an appearance of great
gayety, assumed perhaps from an unconscious desire to hide certain covert
fears. "Only the doctor wants him to take exercise, and it is so fine
this morning that we are going off on quite an expedition."
"Don't go along the quays," said Beauchene again. "Go up towards the
Invalides. He'll have much stiffer marching to do when he's a soldier."
Then, the mother and the child having taken themselves off, he went back
into the works with Mathieu, adding in his triumphant way: "That
youngster, you know, is as strong as an oak. But women are always so
nervous. For my part, I'm quite easy in mind about him, as you can see."
And with a laugh he concluded: "When one has but one son, he keeps him."
That same day, about an hour later, a terrible dispute which broke out
between old Moineaud's daughters, Norine and Euphrasie, threw the factory
into a state of commotion.
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