Page 67 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

twisted his moustaches, and looked me up and down. Then
he beckoned to the breakfast cook and pointed at me.
‘Do you see THAT? That is the type of PLONGEUR they
send us nowadays. Where do you come from, idiot? From
Charenton, I suppose?’ (There is a large lunatic asylum at
Charenton.)
‘From England,’ I said.
‘I might have known it. Well, MAN CHER MONSIEUR
L’ANGLAIS, may I inform you that you are the son of a
whore? And now—the camp to the other counter, where
you belong.’
I got this kind of reception every time I went to the kitch-
en, for I always made some mistake; I was expected to know
the work, and was cursed accordingly. From curiosity I
counted the number of times I was called MAQUEREAU
during the day, and it was thirty-nine.
At half past four the Italian told me that I could stop
working, but that it was not worth going out, as we began at
five. I went to the lavatory for a smoke; smoking was strictly
forbidden, and Boris had warned me that the lavatory was
the only safe place. After that I worked again till a quarter
past nine, when the waiter put his head into the doorway
and told me to leave the rest of the crockery. To my aston-
ishment, after calling me pig, mackerel, etc., all day, he had
suddenly grown quite friendly. I realized that the curses I
had met with were only a kind of probation.
‘That’ll do, MAN P’TIT,’ said the waiter. ‘TU N’ES PAS
DEBROUILLARD, but you work all right. Come up and
have your dinner. The hotel allows us two litres of wine each,

Down and Out in Paris and London