The ploughmen rinsed their throats with great draughts of wine, and, their elbows wide, their foreheads flushed, resumed the attack upon the beef and bread, eating as though they would never have enough.

All up and down the long table, where the kerosene lamps reflected themselves deep in the oil-cloth cover, one heard the incessant sounds of mastication, and saw the uninterrupted movement of great jaws.

At every moment one or another of the men demanded a fresh portion of beef, another pint of wine, another half-loaf of bread.

For upwards of an hour the gang ate.
It was no longer a supper.

It was a veritable barbecue, a crude and primitive feasting, barbaric, homeric.
But in all this scene Vanamee saw nothing repulsive.