His eyes were moistening and he turned pale, as if experiencing some over-acute enjoyment.

‘Eat your soup,’ said Mahoudeau; ’you’ll tell us all about it afterwards.’

The skate was served, and they had the vinegar bottle put on the table to improve the flavour of the black butter, which seemed rather insipid.  They ate with a will, and the hunks of bread swiftly disappeared.  There was nothing refined about the repast, and the wine was mere common stuff, which they watered considerably from a feeling of delicacy, in order to lessen their host’s expenses.  They had just saluted the leg of mutton with a hurrah, and the host had begun to carve it, when the door opened anew.  But this time there were furious protests.

‘No, no, not another soul!  Turn him out, turn him out.’

Dubuche, out of breath with having run, bewildered at finding himself amidst such howling, thrust his fat, pallid face forward, whilst stammering explanations.

’Really, now, I assure you it was the fault of the omnibuses.  I had to wait for five of them in the Champs Elysees.’

’No, no, he’s lying!—­Let him go, he sha’n’t have any of that mutton.  Turn him out, turn him out!’

All the same, he ended by coming in, and it was then noticed that he was stylishly attired, all in black, trousers and frock-coat alike, and cravated and booted in the stiff ceremonious fashion of some respectable member of the middle classes going out to dinner.

‘Hallo! he has missed his invitation,’ chaffed Fagerolles.  ’Don’t you see that his fine ladies didn’t ask him to stay to dinner, and so now he’s come to gobble up our leg of mutton, as he doesn’t know where else to go?’

At this Dubuche turned red, and stammered:  ’Oh! what an idea!  How ill-natured you are!  And, besides, just attend to your own business.’

Sandoz and Claude, seated next to each other, smiled, and the former, beckoning to Dubuche, said to him:  ’Lay your own place, bring a plate and a glass, and sit between us—­like that, they’ll leave you alone.’

However, the chaff continued all the time that the mutton was being eaten.  When the charwoman had brought Dubuche a plate of soup and a piece of skate, he himself fell in with the jokes good-naturedly.  He pretended to be famished, greedily mopped out his plate, and related a story about a mother having refused him her daughter because he was an architect.  The end of the dinner thus became very boisterous; they all rattled on together.  The only dessert, a piece of Brie cheese, met with enormous success.  Not a scrap of it was left, and the bread almost ran short.  The wine did run short, so they each swallowed a clear draught of water, smacking their lips the while amidst great laughter.  And, with faces beaming, and well-filled paunches, they passed into the bedroom with the supreme content of folks who have fared very sumptuously indeed.