The rain trickled down her neck; she drew herself up and went off to the exterior Boulevard, wrapped in thought and not daring to enter. Ah! well Coupeau would have welcomed her in a pleasant way, he who objected to be spied upon! Besides, it really scarcely seemed to her the proper place for a respectable woman. Twice she went back and stood before the shop window, her eyes again riveted to the glass, annoyed at still beholding those confounded drunkards out of the rain and yelling and drinking. The light of l’Assommoir was reflected in the puddles on the pavement, which simmered with little bubbles caused by the downpour. At length she thought she was too foolish, and pushing open the door, she walked straight up to the table where Coupeau was sitting. After all it was her husband she came for, was it not? And she was authorized in doing so, because he had promised to take her to the circus that evening. So much the worse! She had no desire to melt like a cake of soap out on the pavement. “Hullo! It’s you, old woman!” exclaimed the zinc-worker, half choking with a chuckle. “Ah! that’s a good joke. Isn’t it a good joke now?” All the company laughed. Gervaise remained standing, feeling rather bewildered. Coupeau appeared to her to be in a pleasant humor, so she ventured to say: “You remember, we’ve somewhere to go. We must hurry. We shall still be in time to see something.” “I can’t get up, I’m glued, oh! without joking,” resumed Coupeau, who continued laughing. “Try, just to satisfy yourself; pull my arm with all your strength; try it! harder than that, tug away, up with it! You see it’s that louse Pere Colombe who’s screwed me to his seat.” Gervaise had humored him at this game, and when she let go of his arm, the comrades thought the joke so good that they tumbled up against one another, braying and rubbing their shoulders like donkeys being groomed. The zinc-worker’s mouth was so wide with laughter that you could see right down his throat. “You great noodle!” said he at length, “you can surely sit down a minute. You’re better here than splashing about outside. Well, yes; I didn’t come home as I promised, I had business to attend to. Though you may pull a long face, it won’t alter matters. Make room, you others.” “If madame would accept my knees she would find them softer than the seat,” gallantly said My-Boots.