to such pleasantries. The
vermicelli soup, which was nearly cold, was gulped down very quickly,
their lips making a hissing noise against the spoons. Two waiters served
at table, dressed in little greasy jackets and not over-clean white
aprons. By the four open windows overlooking the acacias of the
courtyard there entered the clear light of the close of a stormy day,
with the atmosphere purified thereby though without sufficiently cooling
it. The light reflected from the humid corner of trees tinged the
haze-filled room with green and made leaf shadows dance along the
table-cloth, from which came a vague aroma of dampness and mildew.

Two large mirrors, one at each end of the room, seemed to stretch out
the table. The heavy crockery with which it was set was beginning to
turn yellow and the cutlery was scratched and grimed with grease. Each
time a waiter came through the swinging doors from the kitchen a whiff
of odorous burnt lard came with him.

"Don't all talk at once," said Boche, as everyone remained silent with
his nose in his plate.

They were drinking the first glass of wine as their eyes followed two
meat pies which the waiters were handing round when My-Boots entered the
room.

"Well, you're a scurvy lot, you people!" said he. "I've been wearing my
pins out for three hours waiting on that road, and a gendarme even came
and asked me for my papers. It isn't right to play such dirty tricks on
a friend! You might at least have sent me word by a commissionaire. Ah!
no, you know, joking apart, it's too bad. And with all that, it rained
so hard that I got my pickets full of water. Honor bright, you might
still catch enough fish in 'em for a meal."

The others wriggled with laughter. That animal My-Boots was just a bit
on; he had certainly already stowed away his two quarts of wine, merely
to prevent his being bothered by all that frog's liquor with which the
storm had deluged his limbs.

"Hallo! Count Leg-of-Mutton!" said Coupeau, "just go and sit yourself
there, beside Madame Gaudron. You see you were expected."

Oh, he did not mind, he would soon catch the others up; and he asked
for three helpings of soup, platefuls of vermicelli, in which he soaked
enormous slices of bread. Then, when they had attacked the meat pies, he
became the profound admiration of everyone at the table. How he stowed
it away! The bewildered waiters helped each other to pass him bread,
thin slices which he swallowed at a mouthful.