The men's dining-room was now an immense apartment, where places for five hundred at each of the three dinners could easily be laid. There were long mahogany tables, placed parallel across the room, and at either end were similar tables reserved for the managers of departments and the inspectors; whilst in the centre was a counter for the extras. Large windows, right and left, lighted up with a white light this gallery, of which the ceiling, notwithstanding its being four yards high, seemed very low, crushed by the enormous development of the other dimensions. The sole ornament on the walls, painted a light yellow, were the napkin cupboards. After this first refectory came that of the messengers and carmen, where the meals were served irregularly, according to the necessities of the work.
“What! you've got a leg as well, Mignot?” said Favier, as he took his place at one of the tables opposite his companion.
Other young men now sat down around them. There was no tablecloth, the plates gave out a cracked sound on the bare mahogany, and every one was crying out in this particular corner, for the number of legs was really prodigious.
“These chickens are all legs!” remarked Mignot.
Those who had pieces of the carcase were greatly discontented. However, the food had been much better since the late improvements. Mouret no longer treated with a contractor at a fixed sum; he had taken the kitchen into his own hands, organising it like one of the departments, with a head-cook, under-cooks, and an inspector; and if he spent more he got more work out of the staff—a practical humane calculation which long terrified Bourdoncle.
“Mine is pretty tender, all the same,” said Mignot. “Pass over the bread!”
The big loaf was sent round, and after cutting a slice for himself he dug the knife into the crust A few dilatory ones now hurried in, taking their places; a ferocious appetite, increased by the morning's work, ran along the immense tables from one end to the other. There was an increasing clatter of forks, a sound of bottles being emptied, the noise of glasses laid down too violently, the grinding rumble of five hundred pairs of powerful jaws working with wonderful energy. And the talk, still very rare, was stifled in the mouths full of food.
Deloche, however, seated between Baugé and Liénard, found himself nearly opposite Favier. They had glanced at each other with a rancorous look. The neighbours whispered, aware of their quarrel the previous day. Then they laughed at poor Deloche's ill-luck, always famishing, always falling on to the worst piece at table, by a sort of cruel fatality. This time he had come in for the neck of a chicken and bits of the carcase. Without saying a word he let them joke away, swallowing large mouthfuls of bread, and picking the neck with the infinite art of a fellow who entertains a great respect for meat.
“Why don't you complain?” asked Baugé.
But he shrugged his shoulders. What would be the good? It was always the same. When he ventured to complain things went worse than ever.