Page 122 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

once when a customer in a restaurant had insulted him, he
had poured a plate of hot soup down the customer’s neck,
and then walked straight out without even waiting to be
sacked.
As each day went by Jules grew more and more enraged
at the trick the PATRON had played on us. He had a splut-
tering, oratorical way of talking. He used to walk up and
down shaking his fist, and trying to incite me not to work:
‘Put that brush down, you fool! You and I belong to
proud races; we don’t work for nothing, like these damned
Russian serfs. I tell you, to be cheated like this is torture to
me. There have been times in my life, when someone has
cheated me even of five sous, when I have vomited—yes,
vomited with rage.
‘Besides, MON VIEUX, don’t forget that I’m a Commu-
nist. A BAS LA BOURGEOISIE! Did any man alive ever see
me working when I could avoid it? No. And not only I don’t
wear myself out working, like you other fools, but I steal, just
to show my independence. Once I was in a restaurant where
the PATRON thought he could treat me like a dog. Well, in
revenge I found out a way to steal milk from the milk-cans
and seal them up again so that no one should know. I tell
you I just swilled that milk down night and morning. Every
day I drank four litres of milk, besides half a litre of cream.
The PATRON was at his wits’ end to know where the milk
was going. It wasn’t that I wanted milk, you understand, be-
cause I hate the stuff; it was principle, just principle.
‘Well, after three days I began to get dreadful pains in my
belly, and I went to the doctor. ‘What have you been eating?’

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