"By God! I tell you you shall drink a glass in here; I'll break the jaws of the first man who looks askance at me!"
Catherine, moved at the sight of Étienne, had become very pale. When Chaval in his turn perceived him, he grinned in his evil fashion.
"Two glasses, Madame Rasseneur! We're wetting the new start of work."
Without a word she poured out, as a woman who never refused her beer to any one. There was silence, and neither the landlord nor the two others stirred from their places.
"I know people who've said that I was a spy," Chaval went on swaggeringly, "and I'm waiting for them just to say it again to my face, so that we can have a bit of explanation."
No one replied, and the men turned their heads and gazed vaguely at the walls.
"There are some who sham, and there are some who don't sham," he went on louder. "I've nothing to hide. I've left Deneulin's dirty shop, and to-morrow I'm going down to the Voreux with a dozen Belgians, who have been given me to lead because I'm held in esteem; and if any one doesn't like that, he can just say so, and we'll talk it over."
Then, as the same contemptuous silence greeted his provocations, he turned furiously on Catherine.
"Will you drink, by God? Drink with me to the confusion of all the dirty beasts who refuse to work."
She drank, but with so trembling a hand that the two glasses struck together with a tinkling sound. He had now pulled out of his pocket a handful of silver, which he exhibited with drunken ostentation, saying that he had earned that with his sweat, and that he defied the shammers to show ten sous. The attitude of his mates exasperated him, and he began to come to direct insults.