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You're going to work for that rascal Bourguignon?" yelled My-Boots, when the zinc-worker had spoken to him. "You'll never catch me in his hutch again! No, I'd rather go till next year with my tongue hanging out of my mouth. But, old fellow, you won't stay three days, and it's I who tell you so." "Really now, is it such a dirty hole?" asked Coupeau anxiously. "Oh, it's about the dirtiest.

But she was obliged to put down the bottle of wine very quickly; she no longer had strength to reach the bed; she fell prostrate, and she had more pains on a mat on the floor. When the midwife arrived, a quarter of an hour later, she found mother and baby lying there on the floor. The zinc-worker was still employed at the hospital. Gervaise would not have him disturbed.

The zinc-worker swore, and looked about for him, even calling him through the open skylight of the loft. At length he discovered him on a neighboring roof, two houses off. The young rogue was taking a walk, exploring the environs, his fair scanty locks blowing in the breeze, his eyes blinking as they beheld the immensity of Paris. "I say, lazy bones!

And when they had brought her a glass of the vitriol, the rotgut, and her jaws had contracted at the first mouthful, the zinc-worker resumed, slapping his thighs: "Ha! It tickles your gullet! Drink it off at one go. Each glassful cheats the doctor of six francs." At the second glass Gervaise no longer felt the hunger which had been tormenting her.

The zinc-worker had at last resumed work, and as his employment was at the other side of Paris, she gave him every morning forty sous for his luncheon, his drink and his tobacco. Only two days out of every six Coupeau would stop on the way, drink the forty sous with a friend, and return home to lunch with some grand story or other.

They laughed beforehand, as they looked at the zinc-worker, who steadied himself on his legs as he put on his most vulgar air. Mimicking the hoarse voice of an old woman, he sang: "When out of bed each morn I hop, I'm always precious queer; I send him for a little drop To the drinking-ken that's near.

"Those who're thirsty are thirsty, and those who aren't thirsty aren't thirsty," remarked My-Boots. "Therefore, we'll order the punch. No one need take offence. The aristocrats can drink sugar-and-water." And as the zinc-worker commenced another sermon, the other, who had risen on his legs, gave himself a slap, exclaiming: "Come, let's have no more of that, my boy!

Then, during the long hours the zinc-worker slept, the Lorilleux talked of Gervaise as of a fool. She hadn't done any good by having her husband at home. At the hospital they would have cured him twice as quickly. Lorilleux would have liked to have been ill, to have caught no matter what, just to show her that he did not hesitate for a moment to go to Lariboisiere.

There were some pretty rumpuses in the Coupeaus' room. To begin with, the zinc-worker gave Nana a hiding. What was that he learnt? The hussy was flirting with old men. All right. Only let her be caught philandering out of doors again, she'd be done for; he, her father, would cut off her head in a jiffy. Had the like ever been seen before! A dirty nose who thought of beggaring her family!

Then his comrade would look him up and chaff him unmercifully when he found him hanging to his knotty cord like a smoked ham, and he would call to him to come down and have a glass of wine. And that settled it. The zinc-worker would send the job to blazes and commence a booze which lasted days and weeks.