Then the wedding party, feeling very lively, sat down making a great noise with the chairs. Gervaise was between Lorilleux and Monsieur Madinier, and Coupeau between Madame Fauconnier and Madame Lorilleux. The other guests seated themselves where they liked, because it always ended with jealousies and quarrels, when one settled their places for them. Boche glided to a seat beside Madame Lerat. Bibi-the-Smoker had for neighbors Mademoiselle Remanjou and Madame Gaudron. As for Madame Boche and mother Coupeau, they were right at the end of the table, looking after the children, cutting up their meat and giving them something to drink, but not much wine. “Does nobody say grace?” asked Boche, whilst the ladies arranged their skirts under the table-cloth, so as not to get them stained. But Madame Lorilleux paid no attention to such pleasantries. The vermicelli soup, which was nearly cold, was gulped down very quickly, their lips making a hissing noise against the spoons. Two waiters served at table, dressed in little greasy jackets and not over-clean white aprons. By the four open windows overlooking the acacias of the courtyard there entered the clear light of the close of a stormy day, with the atmosphere purified thereby though without sufficiently cooling it. The light reflected from the humid corner of trees tinged the haze-filled room with green and made leaf shadows dance along the table-cloth, from which came a vague aroma of dampness and mildew. Two large mirrors, one at each end of the room, seemed to stretch out the table. The heavy crockery with which it was set was beginning to turn yellow and the cutlery was scratched and grimed with grease. Each time a waiter came through the swinging doors from the kitchen a whiff of odorous burnt lard came with him. “Don’t all talk at once,” said Boche, as everyone remained silent with his nose in his plate. They were drinking the first glass of wine as their eyes followed two meat pies which the waiters were handing round when My-Boots entered the room. “Well, you’re a scurvy lot, you people!” said he. “I’ve been wearing my pins out for three hours waiting on that road, and a gendarme even came and asked me for my papers. It isn’t right to play such dirty tricks on a friend! You might at least have sent me word by a commissionaire. Ah! no, you know, joking apart, it’s too bad. And with all that, it rained so hard that I got my pickets full of water. Honor bright, you might still catch enough fish in ’em for a meal.” The others wriggled with laughter. That animal My-Boots was just a bit on; he had certainly already stowed away his two quarts of wine, merely to prevent his being bothered by all that frog’s liquor with which the storm had deluged his limbs. “Hallo! Count Leg-of-Mutton!” said Coupeau, “just go and sit yourself there, beside Madame Gaudron. You see you were expected.”