r
was flaring, the shutters down, the gas lighted. Lantier stood at the
door, telling Coupeau to make haste, because they had only ten minutes
left.

"What! You're going to work for that rascal Bourguignon?" yelled
My-Boots, when the zinc-worker had spoken to him. "You'll never catch
me in his hutch again! No, I'd rather go till next year with my tongue
hanging out of my mouth. But, old fellow, you won't stay three days, and
it's I who tell you so."

"Really now, is it such a dirty hole?" asked Coupeau anxiously.

"Oh, it's about the dirtiest. You can't move there. The ape's for ever
on your back. And such queer ways too--a missus who always says you're
drunk, a shop where you mustn't spit. I sent them to the right about the
first night, you know."

"Good; now I'm warned. I shan't stop there for ever. I'll just go this
morning to see what it's like; but if the boss bothers me, I'll catch
him up and plant him upon his missus, you know, bang together like two
fillets of sole!"

Then Coupeau thanked his friend for the useful information and shook his
hand. As he was about to leave, My-Boots cursed angrily. Was that lousy
Bourguignon going to stop them from having a drink? Weren't they free
any more? He could well wait another five minutes. Lantier came in to
share in the round and they stood together at the counter. My-Boots,
with his smock black with dirt and his cap flattened on his head had
recently been proclaimed king of pigs and drunks after he had eaten a
salad of live beetles and chewed a piece of a dead cat.

"Say there, old Borgia," he called to Pere Colombe, "give us some of
your yellow stuff, first class mule's wine."

And when Pere Colombe, pale and quiet in his blue-knitted waistcoat, had
filled the four glasses, these gentlemen tossed them off, so as not to
let the liquor get flat.

"That does some good when it goes down," murmured Bibi-the-Smoker.

The comic My-Boots had a story to tell. He was so drunk on the Friday
that his comrades had stuck his pipe in his mouth with a handful of
plaster. Anyone else would have died of it; he merely strutted about and
puffed out his chest.

"Do you gentlemen require anything more?" asked Pere Colombe in his oily
voice.

"Yes, fill us up again," said Lantier. "It's my turn."

Now they were talking of women. Bibi-the-Smoker had taken his girl to an
aunt's at Montrouge on the previous Sunday. Coupeau asked for the news
of the "Indian Mail," a washerwoman of