can see his heavy mustache trembling. It is like a comb made of
bone, whitish and drooping.

"Do you want to know what I think? These dinner men, they're the
dirtiest dogs of all. It's 'Blast this' and 'Blast that'--John Blast
and Co., I call 'em."

"They have all the elements of a dunghill about them," says Eudore,
with a sigh of conviction. He is prone on the ground, with his mouth
half-open and the air of a martyr. With one fading eye he follows
the movements of Pepin, who prowls to and fro like a hyaena.

Their spiteful exasperation with the loiterers mounts higher and
higher. Tirloir the Grumbler takes the lead and expands. This is
where he comes in. With his little pointed gesticulations he goads
and spurs the anger all around him.

"Ah, the devils, what? The sort of meat they threw at us yesterday!
Talk about whetstones! Beef from an ox, that? Beef from a bicycle,
yes rather! I said to the boys, 'Look here, you chaps, don't you
chew it too quick, or you'll break your front teeth on the nails!'"

Tirloir's harangue--he was manager of a traveling cinema, it
seems--would have made us laugh at other times, but in the present
temper it is only echoed by a circulating growl.

"Another time, so that you won't grumble about the toughness, they
send you something soft and flabby that passes for meat, something
with the look and the taste of a sponge--or a poultice. When you
chew that, it's the same as a cup of water, no more and no less."