“Well! That’s a good thing finished, isn’t it?”
Then pulling herself together, seeing that Lantier, busy in undoing the cords was not even looking at her, she added:
“Monsieur Boche, you must have a drink.”
And she went and fetched a quart of wine and some glasses.
Just then Poisson passed along the pavement in uniform. She signaled to him, winking her eye and smiling. The policeman understood perfectly. When he was on duty and anyone winked their eye to him it meant a glass of wine. He would even walk for hours up and down before the laundry waiting for a wink. Then so as not to be seen, he would pass through the courtyard and toss off the liquor in secret.
“Ah! ah!” said Lantier when he saw him enter, “it’s you, Badingue.”
He called him Badingue for a joke, just to show how little he cared for the Emperor. Poisson put up with it in his stiff way without one knowing whether it really annoyed him or not. Besides the two men, though separated by their political convictions, had become very good friends.
“You know that the Emperor was once a policeman in London,” said Boche in his turn. “Yes, on my word! He used to take the drunken women to the station-house.”
Gervaise had filled three glasses on the table. She would not drink herself, she felt too sick at heart, but she stood there longing to see what the box contained and watching Lantier remove the last cords. Before raising the lid Lantier took his glass and clinked it with the others.
“Good health.”