"Guards!" shouted Dumoulin. "Take this man back to his cell! Be sharp about it!... Double his guard!"
Fandor was not allowed time to protest: he was marched off at the double.
Juve tried to get in a word of explanation.
"I assure you, Commandant, it is certainly Jérôme Fandor you are deal----"
"You!" yelled the commandant. "Get out! Foot it!... Leave me in peace, can't you!... Out with you, or I'll know the reason why!... Begone!"...
Hogshead Geoffrey, also nicknamed "The Barrel," thumped the table with a formidable fist, at the risk of upsetting a pile of saucers, which, at this advanced hour of the evening, showed clearly how he had spent the hours passed in the wine-shop.
"What do I offer?" he retorted. "I offer what's wanted. I don't haggle. When I ask a fellow: 'Old man, what do you want to wet your gullet?' that means: 'Choose.' There now!"
Hogshead Geoffrey's companion merely said:
Once in possession of the wine-list--if such could be called the crumpled, dirty paper on which the owner of the house had scribbled in pencil the fresh drinks, composed of indescribable mixtures specially recommended to his clients--the guest of Hogshead Geoffrey became absorbed in the list of strange beverages.
So mean-looking an individual was this guest that he had been nicknamed "The Scrub." He also answered to the more aristocratic title of "Sacristan." Once he had been sacristan at the church of Saint-Sulpice, but intemperate habits had led to his dismissal. What odd link there was between this sorry little fellow and the robust Geoffrey?[7]
[Footnote 7: See _Fantômas_: vol. i, Fantômas Series]
The Scrub ordered: "A thick 'un--jolly thick!" He eyed his host.
"What's been your lay? I haven't clapped eyes on you for days!"
Hogshead Geoffrey emptied his glass at one go. Leaning his head against the wall, his fists on the table, his legs stretched out, he stared at the ceiling.
The atmosphere of this den in the rue Monge was poisonous with the odours of stale wine and rank tobacco. The musty air was thick, the shop was ill-lighted by one jet of gas in the centre of the room.
"Well, old Scrub," said Geoffrey at last. "You haven't seen me because you haven't!... You remember I passed the Markets' test and was nominated market porter?"