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Within the coach the passengers eyed one another curiously in the dim light of dawn. Right at the back, in the best seats of all, Monsieur and Madame Loiseau, wholesale wine merchants of the Rue Grand-Pont, slumbered opposite each other. Formerly clerk to a merchant who had failed in business, Loiseau had bought his master's interest, and made a fortune for himself.
He sold very bad wine at a very low price to the retail-dealers in the country, and had the reputation, among his friends and acquaintances, of being a shrewd rascal a true Norman, full of quips and wiles. So well established was his character as a cheat that, in the mouths of the citizens of Rouen, the very name of Loiseau became a byword for sharp practice.
But Loiseau, leaving his seat, went over to the innkeeper and began chatting in a low voice. The big man chuckled, coughed, sputtered; his enormous carcass shook with merriment at the pleasantries of the other; and he ended by buying six casks of claret from Loiseau to be delivered in spring, after the departure of the Prussians.
His wife-tall, strong, determined, with a loud voice and decided manner represented the spirit of order and arithmetic in the business house which Loiseau enlivened by his jovial activity.
This display of patriotic prudery evidently aroused his failing dignity, for with a brief salute he made for his own door on tiptoe. Loiseau deeply thrilled and amused, executed a double shuffle in the middle of the room, donned his nightcap, and slipped into the blankets where the bony figure of his spouse already reposed. The whole house sank to silence.
I have known several boarding-schools in my own country, but never any one which was superior in regard to the extreme of neatness and cleanliness, or possessing a more perfect system of regularity, which appears to prevail in that of Madame Loiseau; although mine was rather an early morning call, yet all was in the nicest order.
But the sturdy Madame Loiseau, who had the soul of a gendarme, continued morose, speaking little and eating much. Conversation naturally turned on the war. Terrible stories were told about the Prussians, deeds of bravery were recounted of the French; and all these people who were fleeing themselves were ready to pay homage to the courage of their compatriots.
At last, toward midnight, when they were about to separate, Loiseau, whose gait was far from steady, suddenly slapped him on the back, saying thickly: "You're not jolly to-night; why are you so silent, old man?" Cornudet threw back his head, cast one swift and scornful glance over the assemblage, and answered: "I tell you all, you have done an infamous thing!"
In the light of this melancholy dawn the occupants of the diligence began to examine one another curiously. Right at the end, in the best seats, opposite to one another, dozed Madame and Monsieur Loiseau, whole-sale wine merchant of the Rue Grand Pont. The former salesman of a master who had become bankrupt, Loiseau had bought up the stock and made his fortune.
The Count shuffled the cards and dealt; Boule de Suif had a full thirty-one; and soon the interest in the game quieted the fears that were haunting the minds. But Cornudet noticed that the Loiseau couple had arranged to cheat. As they were going to sit down to dinner, Mr. Follenvie reappeared, and with his grating voice announced: "The Prussian Officer sends me to ask Mlle.
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