"Then you haven't either father or mother?" Gavroche continued magisterially. "I beg your pardon, sir; we have a pa and a ma, but we don't know where they are." "Sometimes that is better than knowing," said Gavroche, who was a philosopher in his small way. "We have been walking about for two hours," the lad continued, "and looked for things at the corners of the streets, but found nothing." "I know," said Gavroche; "the dogs eat everything." He resumed after a pause,-- "And so we have lost our authors. We don't know what we have done with them. That isn't right, gamins. It is foolish to mislay grown-up people. Well, one must swig, for all that." He did not ask them any more questions, for what could be more simple than to have no domicile? The elder of the boys, who had almost entirely recovered the happy carelessness of childhood, made this remark: "It is funny all the same. Mamma said she would take us to look for blessed box, on Palm Sunday. Mamma is a lady who lives with Mamselle Miss." "Tanflute!" added Gavroche. He stopped, and for some minutes searched all sorts of corners which he had in his rags: at length he raised his head with an air which only wished to represent satisfaction, but which was in reality triumphant,-- "Calm yourselves, kids; here is supper for three." And he drew a sou from one of his pockets; without giving the lads time to feel amazed, he pushed them both before him into the baker's shop, and laid his sou on the counter, exclaiming,-- "Garçon, five centimes' worth of bread." The baker, who was the master in person, took up a loaf and a knife. "In three pieces, garçon," remarked Gavroche, and he added with dignity,-- "We are three." And seeing that the baker, after examining the three suppers, had taken a loaf of black bread, he thrust his finger into his nose, with as imperious a sniff as if he had the great Frederick's pinch of snuff on his thumb, and cast in the baker's face this indignant remark,-- "Keksekça?" Those of our readers who might be tempted to see in this remark of Gavroche's to the baker a Russian or Polish word, or one of the savage cries which the Ioways or the Botocudos hurl at each other across the deserted streams, are warned that this is a word which they (our readers) employ daily, and which signifies, _qu'est ce que c'est que cela?_ The baker perfectly comprehended, and replied,-- "Why, it is bread, very good seconds bread." "You mean black bread," Gavroche remarked, with a calm and cold disdain. "White bread, my lad; I stand treat." The baker could not refrain from smiling, and while cutting some white bread gazed at them in a compassionate way which offended Gavroche. "Well, baker's man," he said, "what is there about us that you measure us in that way?" When the bread was cut, the baker put the sou in the till, and Gavroche said to the two boys,-- "Grub away." The boys looked at him in surprise, and Gavroche burst into a laugh.