My-Boots drooled, his pipe between his teeth, with the dumb and grave air of a dozing ox.
Bibi-the-Smoker was telling a story--the manner in which he emptied a bottle at a draught, giving it such a kiss that one instantly saw its bottom.

Meanwhile Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst, had gone and fetched the wheel of fortune from the counter, and was playing with Coupeau for drinks.
"Two hundred! You're lucky; you get high numbers every time!" The needle of the wheel grated, and the figure of Fortune, a big red woman placed under glass, turned round and round until it looked like a mere spot in the centre, similar to a wine stain.
"Three hundred and fifty! You must have been inside it, you confounded lascar! Ah! I shan't play any more!" Gervaise amused herself with the wheel of fortune.

She was feeling awfully thirsty, and calling My-Boots "my child." Behind her the machine for manufacturing drunkards continued working, with its murmur of an underground stream; and she despaired of ever stopping it, of exhausting it, filled with a sullen anger against it, feeling a longing to spring upon the big still as upon some animal, to kick it with her heels and stave in its belly.

Then everything began to seem all mixed up.

The machine seemed to be moving itself and she thought she was being grabbed by its copper claws, and that the underground stream was now flowing over her body.
Then the room danced round, the gas-jets seemed to shoot like stars.
Gervaise was drunk.