"It is hardly wise of you," he said sullenly, "to nickname people after that fashion, as perhaps you are not aware of what you are called in your _Quartier_. Cow's-Tail is not a very nice name, but they have given it to you on account of your hair. Why should we not keep that room? It is a very good one." Mme Lorilleux would not answer. Her dignity was sadly disturbed at being called Cow's-Tail. They walked on in silence until they reached the Hotel Boncœur, and just as Coupeau gave the two women a push toward each other and bade them kiss and be friends, a man who wished to pass them on the right gave a violent lurch to the left and came between them. "Look out!" cried Lorilleux. "It is Father Bazonge. He is pretty full tonight." Gervaise, in great terror, flew toward the door. Father Bazonge was a man of fifty; his clothes were covered with mud where he had fallen in the street. "You need not be afraid," continued Lorilleux; "he will do you no harm. He is a neighbor of ours--the third room on the left in our corridor." But Father Bazonge was talking to Gervaise. "I am not going to eat you, little one," he said. "I have drunk too much, I know very well, but when the work is done the machinery should be greased a little now and then." Gervaise retreated farther into the doorway and with difficulty kept back a sob. She nervously entreated Coupeau to take the man away. Bazonge staggered off, muttering as he did so: "You won't mind it so much one of these days, my dear. I know something about women. They make a great fuss, but they get used to it all the same." CHAPTER IV A HAPPY HOME Four years of hard and incessant toil followed this day. Gervaise and Coupeau were wise and prudent. They worked hard and took a little relaxation on Sundays. The wife worked twelve hours of the twenty-four with Mme Fauconnier and yet found time to keep her own home like waxwork. The husband was never known to be tipsy but brought home his wages and smoked his pipe at his own window at night before going to bed. They were the bright and shining lights, the good example of the whole _Quartier_, and as they made jointly about nine francs per day, it was easy to see they were putting by money. But in the first few months of their married life they were obliged to trim their sails closely and had some trouble to make both ends meet. They took a great dislike to the Hotel Boncœur. They longed for a home of their own with their own furniture. They estimated the cost over and over again and decided that for three hundred and fifty francs they could venture, but they had little hope of saving such a sum in less than two years, when a stroke of good luck befell them.