That rum old buffer Bordenave, with his leg duly stretched on its chair, was letting his neighbors, Lucy and Rose, wait on him as though he were a sultan.

They were entirely taken up with him, and they helped him and pampered him and watched over his glass and his plate, and yet that did not prevent his complaining.
"Who's going to cut up my meat for me?
I can't; the table's a league away." Every few seconds Simonne rose and took up a position behind his back in order to cut his meat and his bread.

All the women took a great interest in the things he ate.

The waiters were recalled, and he was stuffed to suffocation.

Simonne having wiped his mouth for him while Rose and Lucy were changing his plate, her act struck him as very pretty and, deigning at length to show contentment: "There, there, my daughter," he said, "that's as it should be.