"You take the place of Monsieur Margueron's nephew ?" "Yes," replied Oscar, pressing the arm of his mother, who was about to speak.
The officer wished to remain unknown for a time.
Just then Oscar thrilled at hearing the well-remembered voice of Georges Marest calling out from the street: "Pierrotin, have you one seat left ?" "It seems to me you could say 'monsieur' without cracking your throat," replied the master of the line of coaches of the Valley of the Oise, sharply.
Unless by the sound of the voice, Oscar could never have recognized the individual whose jokes had been so fatal to him.

Georges, almost bald, retained only three or four tufts of hair above his ears; but these were elaborately frizzed out to conceal, as best they could, the nakedness of the skull.

A fleshiness ill-placed, in other words, a pear-shaped stomach, altered the once elegant proportions of the ex-young man.

Now almost ignoble in appearance and bearing, Georges exhibited the traces of disasters in love and a life of debauchery in his blotched skin and bloated, vinous features.

The eyes had lost the brilliancy, the vivacity of youth which chaste or studious habits have the virtue to retain.
Dressed like a man who is careless of his clothes, Georges wore a pair of shabby trousers, with straps intended for varnished boots; but his were of leather, thick-soled, ill-blacked, and of many months' wear.