And he was grateful to the Thénardiers. So soon as his wound was cured he recommenced his solitary night-rambles; and it would be a mistake to suppose that a man can walk about alone in the uninhabited regions of Paris without meeting with some adventure. CHAPTER II. MOTHER PLUTARCH ACCOUNTS FOR A PHENOMENON. One evening little Gavroche had eaten nothing; he remembered that he had not dined either on the previous day, and that was becoming ridiculous; so he formed the resolution to try and sup. He went prowling about at the deserted spots beyond the Salpêtrière, for there are good windfalls there; where there is nobody, something may be found. He thus reached a suburb which seemed to him to be the village of Austerlitz. In one of his previous strolls he had noticed there an old garden frequented by an old man and an old woman, and in this garden a passable apple-tree. By the side of this tree was a sort of badly closed fruit-loft, whence an apple might be obtained. An apple is a supper, an apple is life; and what ruined Adam might save Gavroche. The garden skirted a solitary unpaved lane, bordered by shrubs while waiting for houses, and a hedge separated it from the lane. Gavroche proceeded to the garden. He found the lane again, he recognized the apple-tree, and examined the hedge; a hedge is but a stride. Day was declining; there was not a cat in the lane, and the hour was good. Gavroche was preparing to clamber over the hedge, when he stopped short,--some people were talking in the garden. Gavroche looked through one of the interstices in the hedge. Two paces from him, at the foot of the hedge on the other side, at precisely the point where the hole he had intended to make would have opened, lay a stone which formed a species of bench; and on this bench the old man of the garden was seated with the old woman standing in front of him. The old woman was grumbling, and Gavroche, who was not troubled with too much discretion, listened. "Monsieur Mabœuf!" the old woman said. "Mabœuf!" Gavroche thought, "that's a rum name." The old man thus addressed did not stir, and the old woman repeated,-- "Monsieur Mabœuf!" The old man, without taking his eyes off the ground, decided to answer,-- "Well, Mother Plutarch!" "Mother Plutarch!" Gavroche thought, "that's another rum name." Mother Plutarch continued, and the old gentleman was compelled to submit to the conversation. "The landlord is not satisfied." "Why so?" "There are three quarters owing." "In three months more we shall owe four." "He says that he will turn you out." "I will go." "The green-grocer wants to be paid, or she will supply no more fagots. How shall we warm ourselves this winter if we have no wood?" "There is the sun." "The butcher has stopped our credit, and will not supply any more meat." "That is lucky, for I cannot digest meat; it is heavy." "But what shall we have for dinner?" "Bread."