“It’s lovely, that prosperity of his; why, everyone’s dying of hunger!” said Charvet.

“Trade is shocking,” asserted Gavard.

“And what in the name of goodness is the meaning of anybody ’leaning on lights’?” continued Clemence, who prided herself upon literary culture.

Robine himself even allowed a faint laugh to escape from the depths of his beard.  The discussion began to grow warm.  The party fell foul of the Corps Legislatif, and spoke of it with great severity.  Logre did not cease ranting, and Florent found him the same as when he cried the fish at the auctions—­protruding his jaws and hurling his words forward with a wave of the arm, whilst retaining the crouching attitude of a snarling dog.  Indeed, he talked politics in just the same furious manner as he offered a tray full of soles for sale.

Charvet, on the other hand, became quieter and colder amidst the smoke of the pipes and the fumes of the gas which were now filling the little den; and his voice assumed a dry incisive tone, sharp like a guillotine blade, while Robine gently wagged his head without once removing his chin from the ivory knob of his cane.  However, some remark of Gavard’s led the conversation to the subject of women.

“Woman,” declared Charvet drily, “is the equal of man; and, that being so, she ought not to inconvenience him in the management of his life.  Marriage is a partnership, in which everything should be halved.  Isn’t that so, Clemence?”

“Clearly so,” replied the young woman, leaning back with her head against the wall and gazing into the air.

However, Florent now saw Lacaille, the costermonger, and Alexandre, the porter, Claude Lantier’s friend, come into the little room.  In the past these two had long remained at the other table in the sanctum; they did not belong to the same class as the others.  By the help of politics, however, their chairs had drawn nearer, and they had ended by forming part of the circle.  Charvet, in whose eyes they represented “the people,” did his best to indoctrinate them with his advanced political theories, while Gavard played the part of the shopkeeper free from all social prejudices by clinking glasses with them.  Alexandre was a cheerful, good-humoured giant, with the manner of a big merry lad.  Lacaille, on the other hand, was embittered; his hair was already grizzling; and, bent and wearied by his ceaseless perambulations through the streets of Paris, he would at times glance loweringly at the placid figure of Robine, and his sound boots and heavy coat.

That evening both Lacaille and Alexandre called for a liqueur glass of brandy, and then the conversation was renewed with increased warmth and excitement, the party being now quite complete.  A little later, while the door of the cabinet was left ajar, Florent caught sight of Mademoiselle Saget standing in front of the counter.  She had taken a bottle from under her apron, and was watching Rose as the latter poured