"Morning came and cleaned the window. I got up to go and look outside. The rain was hardly less. In the room I could see dark forms that began to stir and breathe hard. Mariette's eyes were red with looking at me all night. Between her and me a soldier was filling his pipe and shivering.
"Some one beats a tattoo on the window, and I half open it. A silhouette with a streaming hat appears, as though carried and driven there by the terrible force of the blast that came with it, and asks—
"'Hey, in the cafe there! Is there any coffee to be had?'
"'Coming, sir, coming,' cried Mariette.
"She gets up from her chair, a little benumbed. Without a word she looks at her self in our bit of a mirror, touches her hair lightly, and says quite simply, the good lass—
"'I am going to make coffee for everybody.'
"When that was drunk off, we had all of us to go. Besides, customers turned up every minute.
"'Hey, la p'tite mere,' they cried, shoving their noses in at the half-open window, 'let's have a coffee—or three—or four'—'and two more again,' says another voice.
"We go up to Mariette to say good-by. They knew they had played gooseberry that night most damnably, but I could see plainly that they didn't know if it would be the thing to say something about it or just let it drop altogether.
"Then the Bulgarian made up his mind: 'We've made a hell of a mess of it for you, eh, ma p'tite dame?'