the salad-bowl.

"I could go on all fours in a meadow," observed the concierge with her
mouth full.

Then they chuckled together as they eyed the dessert. Dessert did not
count. It came rather late but that did not matter; they would nurse
it all the same. When you're that stuffed, you can't let yourself be
stopped by strawberries and cake. There was no hurry. They had
the entire night if they wished. So they piled their plates with
strawberries and cream cheese. Meanwhile the men lit their pipes. They
were drinking the ordinary wine while they smoked since the special wine
had been finished. Now they insisted that Gervaise cut the Savoy cake.
Poisson got up and took the rose from the cake and presented it in
his most gallant manner to the hostess amidst applause from the other
guests. She pinned it over her left breast, near the heart. The silver
butterfly fluttered with her every movement.

"Well, look," exclaimed Lorilleux, who had just made a discovery, "it's
your work-table that we're eating off! Ah, well! I daresay it's never
seen so much work before!"

This malicious joke had a great success. Witty allusions came from all
sides. Clemence could not swallow a spoonful of strawberries without
saying that it was another shirt ironed; Madame Lerat pretended that the
cream cheese smelt of starch; whilst Madame Lorilleux said between her
teeth that it was capital fun to gobble up the money so quickly on the
very boards on which one had had so much trouble to earn it. There was
quite a tempest of shouts and laughter.

But suddenly a loud voice called for silence. It was Boche who, standing
up in an affected and vulgar way, was commencing to sing "The Volcano of
Love, or the Seductive Trooper."

A thunder of applause greeted the first verse. Yes, yes, they would sing
songs! Everyone in turn. It was more amusing than anything else. And
they all put their elbows on the table or leant back in their chairs,
nodding their heads at the best parts and sipping their wine when they
came to the choruses. That rogue Boche had a special gift for comic
songs. He would almost make the water pitchers laugh when he imitated
the raw recruit with his fingers apart and his hat on the back of his
head. Directly after "The Volcano of Love," he burst out into "The
Baroness de Follebiche," one of his greatest successes. When he reached
the third verse he turned towards Clemence and almost murmured it in a
slow and voluptuous tone of voic