At any rate, no boss would dare to throw Salted-Mouth out the door, because you couldn’t find lads of his capacity any more.
After the pettitoes they had an omelet.
When each of them had emptied his bottle, Mere Louis brought out some Auvergne wine, thick enough to cut with a knife.
The party was really warming up.
“What do you think is the ape’s latest idea?” cried Salted-Mouth at dessert.
“Why, he’s been and put a bell up in his shed!
A bell! That’s good for slaves.
Ah, well! It can ring to-day!
They won’t catch me again at the anvil!
For five days past I’ve been sticking there; I may give myself a rest now.
If he deducts anything, I’ll send him to blazes.”
“I,” said Coupeau, with an air of importance, “I’m obliged to leave you; I’m off to work. Yes, I promised my wife. Amuse yourselves; my spirit you know remains with my pals.”
The others chuffed him.
But he seemed so decided that they all accompanied him when he talked of going to fetch his tools from Pere Colombe’s.
He took his bag from under the seat and laid it on the ground before him whilst they had a final drink.
But at one o’clock the party was still standing drinks.
Then Coupeau, with a bored gesture placed the tools back again under the seat. They were in his way; he could not get near the counter without stumbling against them.
It was too absurd; he would go to Bourguignon’s on the morrow.
The other four, who were quarrelling about the question of salaries, were not at all surprised when the zinc-worker, without any explanation, proposed a little stroll on the Boulevard, just to stretch their legs.
They didn’t go very far. They seemed to have nothing to say to each other out in the fresh air. Without even consulting each other with so much as a nudge, they slowly and instinctively ascended the Rue des Poissonniers, where they went to Francois’s and had a glass of wine out of the bottle.
Lantier pushed his comrades inside the private room at the back; it was a narrow place with only one table in it, and was separated from the shop by a dull glazed partition.
He liked to do his drinking in private rooms because it seemed more respectable.
Didn’t they like it here?
It was as comfortable as being at home. You could even take a nap here without being embarrassed.
He called for the newspaper, spread it out open before him, and looked through it, frowning the while.
Coupeau and My-Boots had commenced a game of piquet.
Two bottles of wine and five glasses were scattered about the table.
They emptied their glasses.
Then Lantier read out loud:
“A frightful crime has just spread consternation throughout the Commune of Gaillon, Department of Seine-et-Marne.
A son has killed his father with blows from a spade in order to rob him of thirty sous.”
They all uttered a cry of horror.
There was a fellow whom they would have taken great pleasure in seeing guillotined!
No, the guillotine was not enough; he deserved to be cut into little pieces.
The story of an infanticide equally aroused their indignation; but the hatter, highly moral, found excuses for the woman, putting all the wrong on the back of her husband; for after all, if some beast of a man had not put the wretched woman into the way of bleak poverty, she could not have drowned it in a water closet.
They were most delighted though by the exploit of a Marquis who, coming out of a dance hall at two in the morning, had defended himself against an attack by three blackguards on the Boulevard des Invalides.
Without taking off his gloves, he had disposed of the first two villains by ramming his head into their stomachs, and then had marched the third one off to the police.
What a man!
Too bad he was a noble.
“Listen to this now,” continued Lantier. “Here’s some society news:
‘A marriage is arranged between the eldest daughter of the Countess de Bretigny and the young Baron de Valancay, aide-de-camp to His Majesty.
The wedding trousseau will contain more than three hundred thousand francs’ worth of lace.”
“What’s that to us?” interrupted Bibi-the-Smoker.
“We don’t want to know the color of her mantle.
The girl can have no end of lace; nevertheless she’ll see the folly of loving.”
As Lantier seemed about to continue his reading, Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, took the newspaper from him and sat upon it, saying:
“Ah! no, that’s enough! This is all the paper is good for.”
Meanwhile, My-Boots, who had been looking at his hand, triumphantly banged his fist down on the table.
He scored ninety-three.
“I’ve got the Revolution!” he exulted.