They installed themselves at a table, and played cards boisterously, while quart after quart of wine was served them.
Macqueron, with his fat, moustachioed face, sat huddled up in a corner, twiddling his thumbs. Since he had been gaining money by speculating in the light wines of Montigny, he had fallen into idle ways—hunting, fishing, and playing the gentleman; though he remained filthy and ragged, while his daughter Berthe flounced to and fro in silk. If his wife had heeded him they would have shut up shop, giving up both the grocery and the refreshment business; for he was growing conceited, and had dim ambitions, as yet unrecognised by himself. But she was ferociously eager for gain, and he, although concerning himself personally about nothing, was content to let her go on serving tipple, just to annoy his neighbour Lengaigne, who kept the tobacco shop, and also dealt in drink. 'Twas a long-standing rivalry, ever smouldering, and ever ready to burst into a blaze.
Yet sometimes they were at peace for weeks together; and, as it happened, Lengaigne then came in with his son Victor, a tall, awkward youth, who was to draw for the conscription the next year. Lengaigne himself, a lanky, frozen-looking man, with a little owl's head set upon broad, brawny shoulders, had remained a peasant and tilled the soil, while his wife weighed out the tobacco and drew the wine. He derived a special importance from the fact that he was barber and hair-cutter to the whole village, an avocation which he had brought back from his regiment, and which he plied either at his shop, amid the eaters and drinkers, or else, if his customers preferred it, at their own homes.
"Well, this beard of yours, is it to be done to-day, my boy?" he asked, from the door.
"Bless me! Right you are, I told you to come," cried Macqueron. "This very moment, if you like."
He reached an old shaving-dish from its hook, and took some soap and warm water, while the other drew from his pocket a razor the size of a cutlass, which he set about sharpening on a strop fixed to the case. A squeaky voice now issued from the adjacent grocery department:
"I say," cried Cœlina, "are you going to mess the tables which people drink at? Well, then, you sha'n't! I won't have hair found in the glasses at my house."
This was an attack on the cleanliness of the rival tavern, where customers ate more hair than they drank genuine wine, she said.