He must always have his seat in the small parlour. He'd
rather die than dine anywhere else. And so squeamish as he is, and so
particular about the cider! Not like Monsieur Leon; he sometimes comes
at seven, or even half-past, and he doesn't so much as look at what he
eats. Such a nice young man! Never speaks a rough word!"
"Well, you see, there's a great difference between an educated man and
an old carabineer who is now a tax-collector."
Six o'clock struck. Binet came in.
He wore a blue frock-coat falling in a straight line round his thin
body, and his leather cap, with its lappets knotted over the top of
his head with string, showed under the turned-up peak a bald forehead,
flattened by the constant wearing of a helmet. He wore a black cloth
waistcoat, a hair collar, grey trousers, and, all the year round,
well-blacked boots, that had two parallel swellings due to the sticking
out of his big-toes. Not a hair stood out from the regular line of fair
whiskers, which, encircling his jaws, framed, after the fashion of a
garden border, his long, wan face, whose eyes were small and the nose
hooked.
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