His pockets were now so full of stones that they were almost bursting, while bundles of long herbs peered forth from the surgeon's case which he carried under his arm.
"Hallo! You here, my lad ?" he cried, as he perceived Silvere.

"I thought I was the only member of the family here." He spoke these last words with a touch of irony, as if deriding the intrigues of his father and his uncle Antoine.

Silvere was very glad to meet his cousin; the doctor was the only one of the Rougons who ever shook hands with him in the street, and showed him any sincere friendship.

Seeing him, therefore, still covered with dust from the march, the young man thought him gained over to the Republican cause, and was much delighted thereat.

He talked to the doctor, with youthful magniloquence, of the people's rights, their holy cause, and their certain triumph.