"Gavroche was a remarkably knowing cat, and looked it. He was
wonderfully active, and his twists, twirls, and tumbles were very comic.
He was of a Bohemian temperament, and fond of low company. Thus he would
occasionally compromise the dignity of his descent from the illustrious
Don-Pierrot-de-Navarre, grandee of Spain of the first class, and the
Marquesa Dona Seraphita, of aristocratic and disdainful bearing. He
would sometimes return from his expeditions to the street, accompanied
by gaunt, starved companions, whom he had picked up in his wanderings,
and he would stand complacently by while they bolted the contents of his
plate of food in a violent hurry and in dread of dispersion by a
broomstick or a shower of water. I was sometimes tempted to say to
Gavroche, 'A nice lot of friends you pick up,' but I refrained, for,
after all, it was an amiable weakness: he might have eaten his dinner
all by himself.
"The interesting Eponine was more slender and graceful than her
brothers, and she was an extraordinarily sensitive, nervous, and
electric animal. She was passionately attached to me, and she would do
the honors of my hermitage with perfect grace and propriety. When the
bell rang, she hastened to the door, received the visitors, conducted
them to the salon, made them take seats, talked to them--yes, talked,
with little coos, murmurs, and cries quite unlike the language which
cats use among themselves, and which bordered on the articulate speech
of man.
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