"You must stay here, old boy, if it suits you. It's easily arranged."

And he explained that the dirty-clothes room, cleaned out, would make a nice apartment. Etienne could sleep in the shop, on a mattress on the floor, that was all.

"No, no," said Lantier, "I cannot accept. It would inconvenience you too much. I know that it's willingly offered, but we should be too warm all jumbled up together. Besides, you know, each one likes his liberty.

I should have to go through your room, and that wouldn't be exactly funny."

"Ah, the rogue!" resumed the zinc-worker, choking with laughter, banging his fist down on the table, "he's always thinking of something smutty!

But, you joker, we're of an inventive turn of mind! There're two windows in the room, aren't there? Well, we'll knock one out and turn it into a door. Then, you understand you come in by way of the courtyard, and we can even stop up the other door, if we like. Thus you'll be in your home, and we in ours."

A pause ensued. At length the hatter murmured:

"Ah, yes, in that manner perhaps we might. And yet no, I should be too much in your way."

He avoided looking at Gervaise. But he was evidently waiting for a word from her before accepting. She was very much annoyed at her husband's idea; not that the thought of seeing Lantier living with them wounded her feelings, or made her particularly uneasy, but she was wondering where she would be able to keep the dirty clothes. Coupeau was going on about the advantages of the arrangement. Their rent, five hundred francs, had always been a bit steep. Their friend could pay twenty francs a month for a nicely furnished room and it would help them with the rent. He would be responsible for fixing up a big box under their bed that would be large enough to hold all the dirty clothes. Gervaise still hesitated. She looked toward mother Coupeau for guidance. Lantier had won over mother Coupeau months ago by bringing her gum drops for her cough.

"You would certainly not be in our way," Gervaise ended by saying. "We could so arrange things--"

"No, no, thanks," repeated the hatter. "You're too kind; it would be asking too much."

Coupeau could no longer restrain himself. Was he going to continue making objections when they told him it was freely offered? He would be obliging them. There, did he understand? Then in an excited tone of voice he yelled:

"Etienne! Etienne!"

The youngster had fallen asleep on the table. He raised his head with a start.

"Listen, tell him that you wish it. Yes, that gentleman there. Tell him as loud as you can: 'I wish it!'"

"I wish it!" stuttered Etienne, his voice thick with sleep.

Everyone laughed. But Lantier resumed his grave and impressive air. He squeezed Coupeau's hand across the table as he said:

"I accept. It's in all good fellowship on both sides, is it not? Yes, I accept for the child's sake."

The next day when the landlord, Monsieur Marescot, came to spend an hour with the Boches, Gervaise mentioned the matter to him. He refused angrily at first. Then, after a careful inspection of the premises, particularly gazing upward to verify that the upper floors would not be weakened, he finally granted permission on condition there would be no expense to him. He had the Coupeaus sign a paper saying they would restore everything to its original state on the expiration of the lease.

Coupeau brought in some friends of his that very evening--a mason, a carpenter and a painter. They would do this job in the evenings as a favor to him. Still, installing the door and cleaning up the room cost over one hundred francs, not counting the wine that kept the work going.

Coupeau told his friends he'd pay them something later, out of the rent from his tenant.

Then the furniture for the room had to be sorted out. Gervaise left mother Coupeau's wardrobe where it was, and added a table and two chairs taken from her own room. She had to buy a washing-stand and a bed with mattress and bedclothes, costing one hundred and thirty francs, which she was to pay off at ten francs a month. Although Lantier's twenty francs would be used to pay off these debts for ten months, there would be a nice little profit later.

It was during the early days of June that the hatter moved in. The day before, Coupeau had offered to go with him and fetch his box, to save him the thirty sous for a cab. But the other became quite embarrassed, saying that the box was too heavy, as though he wished up to the last moment to hide the place where he lodged. He arrived in the afternoon towards three o'clock. Coupeau did not happen to be in. And Gervaise, standing at the shop door became quite pale on recognizing the box outside the cab. It was their old box, the one with which they had journeyed from Plassans, all scratched and broken now and held together by cords. She saw it return as she had often dreamt it would and it needed no great stretch of imagination to believe that the same cab, that cab in which that strumpet of a burnisher had played her such a foul trick, had brought the box back again. Meanwhile Boche was giving Lantier a helping hand. The laundress followed them in silence and feeling rather dazed. When they had deposited their burden in the middle of the room she said for the sake of saying something:

"Well! That's a good thing finished, isn't it?"

Then pulling herself together, seeing that Lantier, busy in undoing the cords was not even looking at her, she added:

"Monsieur Boche, you must have a drink."

And she went and fetched a quart of wine and some glasses.

Just then Poisson passed along the pavement in uniform. She signaled to him, winking her eye and smiling. The policeman understood perfectly.

When he was on duty and anyone winked their eye to him it meant a glass of wine. He would even walk for hours up and down before the laundry waiting for a wink. Then so as not to be seen, he would pass through the courtyard and toss off the liquor in secret.

"Ah! ah!" said Lantier when he saw him enter, "it's you, Badingue."

He called him Badingue for a joke, just to show how little he cared for the Emperor. Poisson put up with it in his stiff way without one knowing whether it really annoyed him or not. Besides the two men, though separated by their political convictions, had become very good friends.

"You know that the Emperor was once a policeman in London," said Boche in his turn. "Yes, on my word! He used to take the drunken women to the station-house."

Gervaise had filled three glasses on the table. She would not drink herself, she felt too sick at heart, but she stood there longing to see what the box contained and watching Lantier remove the last cords.

Before raising the lid Lantier took his glass and clinked it with the others.

"Good health."

"Same to you," replied Boche and Poisson.

The laundress filled the glasses again. The three men wiped their lips on the backs of their hands. And at last the hatter opened the box. It was full of a jumble of newspapers, books, old clothes and underlinen, in bundles. He took out successively a saucepan, a pair of boots, a bust of Ledru-Rollin with the nose broken, an embroidered shirt and a pair of working trousers. Gervaise could smell the odor of tobacco and that of a man whose linen wasn't too clean, one who took care only of the outside, of what people could see.

The old hat was no longer in the left corner. There was a pincushion she did not recognize, doubtless a present from some woman. She became calmer, but felt a vague sadness as she continued to watch the objects that appeared, wondering if they were from her time or from the time of others.

"I say, Badingue, do you know this?" resumed Lantier.

He thrust under his nose a little book printed at Brussels. "The Amours of Napoleon III." Illustrated with engravings. It related, among other anecdotes, how the Emperor had seduced a girl of thirteen, the daughter of a cook; and the picture represented Napoleon III., bare-legged, and also wearing the grand ribbon of the Legion of Honor, pursuing a little girl who was trying to escape his lust.

"Ah! that's it exactly!" exclaimed Boche, whose slyly ridiculous instincts felt flattered by the sight. "It always happens like that!"

Poisson was seized with consternation, and he could not find a word to say in the Emperor's defense. It was in a book, so he could not deny it. Then, Lantier, continuing to push the picture under his nose in a jeering way, he extended his arms and exclaimed:

"Well, so what?"

Lantier didn't reply, He busied himself arranging his books and newspapers on a shelf in the wardrobe. He seemed upset not to have a small bookshelf over his table, so Gervaise promised to get him one.

He had "The History of Ten Years" by Louis Blanc (except for the first volume), Lamartine's "The Girondins" in installments, "The Mysteries of Paris" and "The Wandering Jew" by Eugene Sue, and a quantity of booklets on philosophic and humanitarian subjects picked up from used book dealers.

His newspapers were his prized possessions, a collection made over a number of years. Whenever he read an article in a cafe that seemed to him to agree with his own ideas, he would buy that newspaper and keep it. He had an enormous bundle of them, papers of every date and every title, piled up in no discernable order. He patted them and said to the other two:

"You see that? No one else can boast of having anything to match it.

You can't imagine all that's in there. I mean, if they put into practice only half the ideas, it would clean up the social order overnight. That would be good medicine for your Emperor and all his stool pigeons."

The policeman's red mustache and beard began to bristle on his pale face and he interrupted:

"And the army, tell me, what are you going to do about that?"

Lantier flew into a passion. He banged his fists down on the newspapers as he yelled:

"I require the suppression of militarism, the fraternity of peoples.

I require the abolition of privileges, of titles, and of monopolies.

I require the equality of salaries, the division of benefits, the glorification of the protectorate. All liberties, do you hear? All of them! And divorce!"

"Yes, yes, divorce for morality!" insisted Boche.