And seeing that the baker, after scrutinizing the three customers, had taken down a black loaf, he thrust his finger far up his nose with an inhalation as imperious as though he had had a pinch of the great Frederick’s snuff on the tip of his thumb, and hurled this indignant apostrophe full in the baker’s face:⁠—

“ Keksekça? ”

Those of our readers who might be tempted to espy in this interpellation of Gavroche’s to the baker a Russian or a Polish word, or one of those savage cries which the Yoways and the Botocudos hurl at each other from bank to bank of a river, athwart the solitudes, are warned that it is a word which our readers utter every day, and which takes the place of the phrase: “ Qu’est-ce que c’est que cela? ” The baker understood perfectly, and replied:⁠—

“Well! It’s bread, and very good bread of the second quality.”