“Artemise!” shouted the landlady, “chop some wood, fill the water bottles, bring some brandy, look sharp!  If only I knew what dessert to offer the guests you are expecting!  Good heavens!  Those furniture-movers are beginning their racket in the billiard-room again; and their van has been left before the front door!  The ‘Hirondelle’ might run into it when it draws up.  Call Polyte and tell him to put it up.  Only think, Monsieur Homais, that since morning they have had about fifteen games, and drunk eight jars of cider!  Why, they’ll tear my cloth for me,” she went on, looking at them from a distance, her strainer in her hand.

“That wouldn’t be much of a loss,” replied Monsieur Homais.  “You would buy another.”

“Another billiard-table!” exclaimed the widow.

“Since that one is coming to pieces, Madame Lefrancois.  I tell you again you are doing yourself harm, much harm!  And besides, players now want narrow pockets and heavy cues.  Hazards aren’t played now; everything is changed!  One must keep pace with the times!  Just look at Tellier!”

The hostess reddened with vexation.  The chemist went on—­

“You may say what you like; his table is better than yours; and if one were to think, for example, of getting up a patriotic pool for Poland or the sufferers from the Lyons floods—­”

“It isn’t beggars like him that’ll frighten us,” interrupted the landlady, shrugging her fat shoulders.  “Come, come, Monsieur Homais; as long as the ‘Lion d’Or’ exists people will come to it.  We’ve feathered our nest; while one of these days you’ll find the ‘Cafe Francais’ closed with a big placard on the shutters.  Change my billiard-table!” she went on, speaking to herself, “the table that comes in so handy for folding the washing, and on which, in the hunting season, I have slept six visitors!  But that dawdler, Hivert, doesn’t come!”

“Are you waiting for him for your gentlemen’s dinner?”

“Wait for him!  And what about Monsieur Binet?  As the clock strikes six you’ll see him come in, for he hasn’t his equal under the sun for punctuality.  He must always have his seat in the small parlour.  He’d rather die than dine anywhere else.  And so squeamish as he is, and so particular about the cider!  Not like Monsieur Leon; he sometimes comes at seven, or even half-past, and he doesn’t so much as look at what he eats.  Such a nice young man!  Never speaks a rough word!”

“Well, you see, there’s a great difference between an educated man and an old carabineer who is now a tax-collector.”

Six o’clock struck.  Binet came in.