CHAPTER V
A BANQUET ON THE SAWDUST
Poufaille and Phil were now friends again—really they had been so for some time, ever since the day when Phil had taken to Poufaille Ethel’s order for a picture. Poufaille was incapable of nursing wrath, and received Phil with open arms. The two copains squeezed each other’s hands.
“Good old Phil!” Poufaille exclaimed; and Phil answered: “Good old Poufaille!”
And they did not speak once of their old quarrel until the day when the artistes had their banquet in the ring of the circus itself.
Phil had a great deal of amusement that day. Suzanne beggared description, and Poufaille was a show in himself, standing up, glass in hand, and singing the glory of the vintage. With a gesture, he snatched his collar from his shirt.
“It chokes me! I can’t give the trills!” he said, for the trills were the strong point of this garlic-eater and roller of r’s from the South. So he thundered out his song in honor of wine and vine, of vats and presses, and of the good hot blood of the good old wine-drinkers. Around the table all the voices took up the refrain, but they could not drown the terrible voice of Poufaille, which rumbled and rolled, covering all the rest as the noise of thunder covers the twittering of sparrows.
“Buveurs de vin—couchez dans la poussière
Ces buveurs de bière!”
(“Wine drinkers, throw down in the dust
All drinkers of beer!”)