Page 123 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

he said. I said: ‘I drink four litres of milk a day, and half a
litre of cream.’ ‘Four litres!’ he said. ‘Then stop it at once.
You’ll burst if you go on.’ ‘What do I care?’ I said. ‘With
me principle is everything. I shall go on drinking that milk,
even if I do burst.’
‘Well, the next day the PATRON caught me stealing
milk. ‘You’re sacked,’ he said; ‘you leave at the end of the
week.’ ‘PARDON, MONSIEUR,’ I said, ‘I shall leave this
morning.’ ‘No, you won’t,’ he said, ‘I can’t spare you till Sat-
urday.’ ‘Very well, MON PATRON,’ I thought to myself,
‘we’ll see who gets tired of it first.’ And then I set to work
to smash the crockery. I broke nine plates the first day and
thirteen the second; after that the PATRON was glad to see
the last of me.
‘Ah, I’m not one of your Russian MOUJIKS …’
Ten days passed. It was a bad time. I was absolutely at the
end of my money, and my rent was several days overdue. We
loafed about the dismal empty restaurant, too hungry even
to get on with the work that remained. Only Boris now be-
lieved that the restaurant would open. He had set his heart
on being MAITRE D’HOTEL, and he invented a theory
that the PATRON’S money was tied up in shares and he was
waiting a favourable moment for selling. On the tenth day I
had nothing to eat or smoke, and I told the PATRON that I
could not continue working without an advance on my wag-
es. As blandly as usual, the PATRON promised the advance,
and then, according to his custom, vanished. I walked part
of the way home, but I did not feel equal to a scene with Ma-
dame F. over the rent, so I passed the night on a bench on

1 Down and Out in Paris and London