The girl who waits on it has gold earrings dangling against her white
neck and a cap with turned up wings, like Moliere's soubrettes, and her
sparkling blue eyes would incline anyone to ask her for something more
than mere plates. But the guests! What guests! All _habitues_! At the
upper end sat a creature in a velvet jacket and a cashmere waistcoat. He
tied his napkin around the bottles that had been uncorked, in order to
be able to distinguish them. He ladled the soup. On his left, sat a man
in a light grey frock-coat, with the cuffs and collar trimmed with a
sort of curly material representing fur; he ate with his hat on and was
the professor of music at the local college. But he has grown tired of
his profession and is anxious to find some place that would bring him
from eight to twelve hundred francs at the most. He does not care so
much about the salary, what he desires is the consideration that
attaches to such a place. As he was always late, he requested that the
courses be brought up again from the kitchen, and if he did not like
them, he would send them back untouched; he sneezed and expectorated and
rocked his chair and hummed and leaned his elbows on the table and
picked his teeth.
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