so many hands now idle and necessarily ruinous, so many forces
kept unproductive, if they were employed for the great industrial
enterprises which, at the present pace, it would take centuries to
complete.

But Loiseau, leaving his seat, went and spoke in a very low
voice to the inn-keeper. The fat man was laughing, coughing, and
expectorating. His enormous stomach shook with merriment at the
jokes of his neighbor, and he bought from him six casks of claret
to be delivered in the Spring, after the departure of the Prussians.

Hardly were they through with supper, they retired, as they were
all tired out.

Loiseau, however, who had kept an eye on what was going on, send
his wife to bed; then he pressed now his ear, now his eye to the
keyhole in order to try and discover what he called "the mysteries
of the hall."--

After about an hour, he heard a rustle, peeped out quickly and saw
Boule de Suif, who looked still more corpulent in a blue cashmere
dressing gown trimmed with white lace. She held a candle in her
hand and made straight for the room at the other end of the hall
bearing a conspicuous number. But a side-door opened, and when,
after a few minutes, she came back, Cornudet, in his shirt-sleeves
and suspenders, was following her. Boule de Suif seemed to deny
him energetically admission to her room. Unfortunately Loisseau
could not hear what they said, but in the end, as they raised their
voices, he was able to catch a few words. Cornudet was insisting
eagerly: