peau was sitting. After all it was her
husband she came for, was it not? And she was authorized in doing so,
because he had promised to take her to the circus that evening. So much
the worse! She had no desire to melt like a cake of soap out on the
pavement.

"Hullo! It's you, old woman!" exclaimed the zinc-worker, half choking
with a chuckle. "Ah! that's a good joke. Isn't it a good joke now?"

All the company laughed. Gervaise remained standing, feeling rather
bewildered. Coupeau appeared to her to be in a pleasant humor, so she
ventured to say:

"You remember, we've somewhere to go. We must hurry. We shall still be
in time to see something."

"I can't get up, I'm glued, oh! without joking," resumed Coupeau, who
continued laughing. "Try, just to satisfy yourself; pull my arm with all
your strength; try it! harder than that, tug away, up with it! You see
it's that louse Pere Colombe who's screwed me to his seat."

Gervaise had humored him at this game, and when she let go of his arm,
the comrades thought the joke so good that they tumbled up against one
another, braying and rubbing their shoulders like donkeys being groomed.
The zinc-worker's mouth was so wide with laughter that you could see
right down his throat.

"You great noodle!" said he at length, "you can surely sit down a
minute. You're better here than splashing about outside. Well, yes; I
didn't come home as I promised, I had business to attend to. Though you
may pull a long face, it won't alter matters. Make room, you others."

"If madame would accept my knees she would find them softer than the
seat," gallantly said My-Boots.

Gervaise, not wishing to attract attention, took a chair and sat down
at a short distance from the table. She looked at what the men were
drinking, some rotgut brandy which shone like gold in the glasses; a
little of it had dropped upon the table and Salted-Mouth, otherwise
Drink-without-Thirst, dipped his finger in it whilst conversing and
wrote a woman's name--"Eulalie"--in big letters. She noticed
that Bibi-the-Smoker looked shockingly jaded and thinner than a
hundred-weight of nails. My-Boot's nose was in full bloom, a regular
purple Burgundy dahlia. They were all quite dirty, their beards stiff,
their smocks ragged and stained, their hands grimy with dirt. Yet they
were still quite polite.

Gervaise noticed a couple of men at the bar. They were so drunk that
they were spilling the drink down their chins when they thou