This was a table d'hote in the Rue des Martyrs, where the dinner cost three francs.
Tired of waiting for the dinner hour and not knowing what to do out in the street, the pair went up to Laure's twenty minutes too early.

The three dining rooms there were still empty, and they sat down at a table in the very saloon where Laure Piedefer was enthroned on a high bench behind a bar.

This Laure was a lady of some fifty summers, whose swelling contours were tightly laced by belts and corsets.

Women kept entering in quick procession, and each, in passing, craned upward so as to overtop the saucers raised on the counter and kissed Laure on the mouth with tender familiarity, while the monstrous creature tried, with tears in her eyes, to divide her attentions among them in such a way as to make no one jealous.

On the other hand, the servant who waited on the ladies was a tall, lean woman.