open doorway freshened the close, warm vinous air.  The landlord, Monsieur Lebigre, was serving his customers.  He wore a sleeved waistcoat, and his fat regular features, fringed by an untidy beard, were still pale with sleep.  Standing in front of the counter, groups of men, with heavy, tired eyes, were drinking, coughing, and spitting, whilst trying to rouse themselves by the aid of white wine and brandy.  Amongst them Florent recognised Lacaille, whose sack now overflowed with various sorts of vegetables.  He was taking his third dram with a friend, who was telling him a long story about the purchase of a hamper of potatoes.[*] When he had emptied his glass, he went to chat with Monsieur Lebigre in a little glazed compartment at the end of the room, where the gas had not yet been lighted.

     [*] At the Paris central markets potatoes are sold by the
     hamper, not by the sack as in England.—­Translator.

“What will you take?” Claude asked of Florent.

He had on entering grasped the hand of the person who had called out to him.  This was a market porter,[*] a well-built young man of two and twenty at the most.  His cheeks and chin were clean-shaven, but he wore a small moustache, and looked a sprightly, strapping fellow with his broad-brimmed hat covered with chalk, and his wool-worked neck-piece, the straps falling from which tightened his short blue blouse.  Claude, who called him Alexandre, patted his arms, and asked him when they were going to Charentonneau again.  Then they talked about a grand excursion they had made together in a boat on the Marne, when they had eaten a rabbit for supper in the evening.

     [*] Fort is the French term, literally “a strong man,” as
     every market porter needs to be.—­Translator.

“Well, what will you take?” Claude again asked Florent.

The latter looked at the counter in great embarrassment.  At one end of it some stoneware pots, encircled with brass bands and containing punch and hot wine, were standing over the short blue flames of a gas stove.  Florent at last confessed that a glass of something warm would be welcome.  Monsieur Lebigre thereupon served them with three glasses of punch.  In a basket near the pots were some smoking hot rolls which had only just arrived.  However, as neither of the others took one, Florent likewise refrained, and drank his punch.  He felt it slipping down into his empty stomach, like a steam of molten lead.  It was Alexandre who paid for the “shout.”

“He’s a fine fellow, that Alexandre!” said Claude, when he and Florent found themselves alone again on the footway of the Rue Rambuteau.  “He’s a very amusing companion to take into the country.  He’s fond of showing his strength.  And then he’s so magnificently built!  I have seen him stripped.  Ah, if I could only get him to pose for me in the nude out in the open air!  Well, we’ll go and take a turn through the markets now, if you like.”