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GERMINAL "Let be! it's my concern. I tell you I don't care a damn for him."

Maheu now arrived with his party, and quieted Catherine and Philomène who were in tears. The nail-maker had disappeared, and there was laughter in the crowd. To finally conclude the episode, Chaval, who was at home at the Estaminet Piquette, called for drinks. Étienne had touched glasses with Catherine, and all drank together—the father, the daughter and her lover, the son and his mistress—saying politely: "To your good health!" Pierron afterwards persisted in paying for more drinks. And they were all in good humour, when Zacharie, at the sight of his comrade Mouquet, called him, as he said, to go and finish his affair with the nail-maker.

"I shall have to go and do for him! Here, Chaval, keep Philomène with Catherine. I'm coming back."

Maheu offered drinks in his turn. After all, if the lad wished to avenge his sister it was not a bad example. But as soon as she had seen Mouquet, Philomène felt at rest, and nodded her head. Sure enough the two chaps would be off to the Volcan!

On the evening of feast-days the fair was terminated in the ball-room of the Bon-Joyeux. It was a widow, Madame Désir, who kept this ball-room, a fat matron of fifty, as round as a tub, but so fresh that she still had six lovers, one for every day of the week, she said, and the six together for Sunday. She called all the miners her children; and grew tender at the thought of the flood of beer which she had poured out for them during the last thirty years; and she boasted also that a putter never became pregnant without having first stretched her legs at her establishment. There were two rooms in the Bon-Joyeux: the bar which contained the counter and tables; then, communicating with it on the same floor by a large arch, was the ball-room, a large hall only planked in the middle, being paved with bricks round the sides. It was decorated with two garlands of paper flowers which crossed one another, and were united in the middle by a crown of the same flowers; while along the walls were rows of gilt shields bearing the names of saints—St. Éloi, patron of the iron-workers; St. Crispin, patron of the shoemakers; St. Barbe, patron of the miners; the whole calendar of corporations. The ceiling was so low that the three musicians on their platform, which was about the size [138]