A pretty little serpent, pretty, and
doing the grand, and fawning on you like a little dog. Yes, she kissed
me, and wanted to have news of everyone--I was very pleased to meet
her."

"Ah!" said Gervaise for the third time. She drew herself together,
and still waited. Hadn't her daughter had a word for her then? In the
silence Poisson's saw could be heard again. Lantier, who felt gay, was
sucking his barley-sugar, and smacking his lips.

"Well, if _I_ saw her, I should go over to the other side of the
street," interposed Virginie, who had just pinched the hatter again most
ferociously. "It isn't because you are there, Madame Coupeau, but your
daughter is rotten to the core. Why, every day Poisson arrests girls who
are better than she is."

Gervaise said nothing, nor did she move; her eyes staring into space.
She ended by jerking her head to and fro, as if in answer to her
thoughts, whilst the hatter, with a gluttonous mien, muttered:

"Ah, a man wouldn't mind getting a bit of indigestion from that sort of
rottenness. It's as tender as chicken."

But the grocer gave him such a terrible look that he had to pause and
quiet her with some delicate attention. He watched the policeman, and
perceiving that he had his nose lowered over his little box again, he
profited of the opportunity to shove some barley-sugar into Virginie's
mouth. Thereupon she laughed at him good-naturedly and turned all her
anger against Gervaise.

"Just make haste, eh? The work doesn't do itself while you remain stuck
there like a street post. Come, look alive, I don't want to flounder
about in the water till night time."

And she added hatefully in a lower tone: "It isn't my fault if her
daughter's gone and left her."

No doubt Gervaise did not hear. She had begun to scrub the floor again,
with her back bent and dragging herself along with a frog-like motion.
She still had to sweep the dirty water out into the gutter, and then do
the final rinsing.

After a pause, Lantier, who felt bored, raised his voice again: "Do
you know, Badingue," he cried, "I met your boss yesterday in the Rue de
Rivoli. He looked awfully down in the mouth. He hasn't six months' life
left in his body. Ah! after all, with the life he leads--"

He was talking about the Emperor. The policeman did not raise his eyes,
but curtly answered: "If you were the Government you wouldn't be so
fat."

"Oh, my dear fellow, if I were the Government," rejoined the hatter,
suddenly