"Sacré tas de bougres!" he roared. "I told you to come at nine o'clock, didn't I? What are you doing here, then? You, Asticot, you are supposed to have more sense than Squelette, there! Why do you interrupt me before the hour I set?"
The man addressed as Asticot—a heavy, bench-legged young man with two favoris pasted over his large wide ears—shuffled his shoes most uncomfortably.
Squelette, tall, frightfully thin, with his long, furrowed neck of an unclean bird swathed in a red handkerchief, stood sullen and motionless while the glare of his torch streamed over Wildresse.
"Nom de Dieu!" shouted the latter. "Aim at my belly and keep that light out of my face, you stupid ass!"
Squelette sulkily shifted his torch; Asticot said in the nasal, whining voice of the outer boulevards:
"Voyons, mon vieux, you have been at it for six hours, and the Skeleton here and I thought you might require our services——"
"Is that so!" snarled Wildresse. "Also, they may require your services in La Roquette!"
"They do," remarked Squelette naïvely.
"You don't have to tell me that!" retorted Wildresse. "You'll sneeze for them, too, some day!" He turned savagely on Asticot: "I don't want you now! I'm busy! Do you understand?"
"I understand," replied the Maggot. "All the same, if I may be so bold—what's the use of chattering if there's a job to finish? If there's work to do, do it, and talk afterward. That's my idea."