dinner, the Silver Windmill on the Boulevard de la Chapelle. For ten
minutes they tried to see it, even arguing about it. Everyone had their
own idea where it was.

"It wasn't worth while coming up here to bite each other's noses off,"
said Boche, angrily as he turned to descend the staircase.

The wedding party went down, unspeaking and sulky, awakening no other
sound beyond that of shoes clanking on the stone steps. When it reached
the bottom, Monsieur Madinier wished to pay; but Coupeau would not
permit him, and hastened to place twenty-four sous into the keeper's
hand, two sous for each person. So they returned by the Boulevards and
the Faubourg du Poissonniers. Coupeau, however, considered that their
outing could not end like that. He bundled them all into a wineshop
where they took some vermouth.

The repast was ordered for six o'clock. At the Silver Windmill, they
had been waiting for the wedding party for a good twenty minutes. Madame
Boche, who had got a lady living in the same house to attend to her
duties for the evening, was conversing with mother Coupeau in the first
floor room, in front of the table, which was all laid out; and the two
youngsters, Claude and Etienne, whom she had brought with her, were
playing about beneath the table and amongst the chairs. When Gervaise,
on entering caught sight of the little ones, whom she had not seen all
the day, she took them on her knees, and caressed and kissed them.

"Have they been good?" asked she of Madame Boche. "I hope they haven't
worried you too much."

And as the latter related the things the little rascals had done during