bedroom, and having been conducted thereto by a crushed-looking
waiter, who drifted aimlessly before him, threw himself on the bed
and went fast asleep.

Old Simon, in the dimly-lit back parlour, was already snoring, and
only Miss Twexby, amid the glitter of the glasses in the bar and the
glare of the sunshine through the open door, was wide awake.
Customers came in for foaming tankards of beer, and sometimes a
little girl, with a jug hidden under her apron, would appear, with a
request that it might be filled for 'mother', who was ironing.
Indeed, the number of women who were ironing that afternoon, and
wanted to quench their thirst, was something wonderful; but Miss
Twexby seemed to know all about it as she put a frothy head on each
jug, and received the silver in exchange. At last, however, even
Martha the wide-awake was yielding to the somniferous heat of the
day when a young man entered the bar and made her sit up with great
alacrity, beaming all over her hard wooden face.

This was none other than M. Vandeloup, who had come down to see
Pierre. Dressed in flannels, with a blue scarf tied carelessly round
his waist, a blue necktie knotted loosely round his throat under the
collar of his shirt, and wearing a straw hat on his fair head, he
looked wonderfully cool and handsome, and as he leaned over the
counter composedly smoking a cigarette, Miss Twexby thought that the
hero of her novel must have stepped bodily out of the book. Gaston
stared complacently at her while he pulled at his fair moustache,
and thought how horribly plain-looking she was, and what a contrast
to his charming Bebe.

'I'll take something cool to drink,' he said, with a yawn, 'and also