Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/162

134 and which made them all rock on their stools and communicated to the table, the army of half-litres and the window-panes a tremor like that provoked during the day by one of their enormous wagons jolting along the street.

Laurent came away from these meetings dumfounded, overpowered, a little suffocated, as though he had been surfeited with strong quarters of beef, or even been exposed, like a ham, to prolonged fumigation. And in the face of these hurricanes of abundant humour, how could anybody charge the full-blooded exuberance and the almost brutal license of the colorists of the past with being exaggerated?

In busy times, when the stationary force of workers on the premises was not sufficient to carry on the abundance of work, Laurent had the opportunity of accompanying Jean Vingerhout to the Coin des Paresseux, the crowded thoroughfare bordering the Maison Hanséatique, so called because it was there that the perpetually jobless congregated. Very typical were the scenes of enlisting and recruiting which he attended there! The first time Laurent did not understand why baes Jean, needing a reinforcement of only five men, had bothered himself with twenty of these tramps, all very strong, certainly, and even built for gigantic labors, but who exercised their muscles only in fighting, and mixed too much alcohol with their rich blood.

"Just you wait!" said the baes, who knew his men, with a laugh.

After the most ridiculous negotiations they finally accepted his terms and started on their way, but reluctantly, and sighing in the most heartrending fashion after every step. About twenty meters away from their standing place, one or another of these lazaroni