meat pies which the waiters were handing round when My-Boots entered the
room.

"Well, you're a scurvy lot, you people!" said he. "I've been wearing my
pins out for three hours waiting on that road, and a gendarme even came
and asked me for my papers. It isn't right to play such dirty tricks on
a friend! You might at least have sent me word by a commissionaire. Ah!
no, you know, joking apart, it's too bad. And with all that, it rained
so hard that I got my pickets full of water. Honor bright, you might
still catch enough fish in 'em for a meal."

The others wriggled with laughter. That animal My-Boots was just a bit
on; he had certainly already stowed away his two quarts of wine, merely
to prevent his being bothered by all that frog's liquor with which the
storm had deluged his limbs.

"Hallo! Count Leg-of-Mutton!" said Coupeau, "just go and sit yourself
there, beside Madame Gaudron. You see you were expected."

Oh, he did not mind, he would soon catch the others up; and he asked
for three helpings of soup, platefuls of vermicelli, in which he soaked
enormous slices of bread. Then, when they had attacked the meat pies, he
became the profound admiration of everyone at the table. How he stowed
it away! The bewildered waiters helped each other to pass him bread,
thin slices which he swallowed at a mouthful. He ended by losing his
temper; he insisted on having a loaf placed on the table beside him. The
landlord, very anxious, came for a moment and looked in at the door. The
party, which was expecting him, again wriggled with laughter. It seemed
to upset the caterer. What a rum card he was that My-Boots! One day he
had eaten a dozen hard-boiled eggs and drank a dozen glasses of wine