Near the door the proprietress sat intrenched behind the cash-box in a Parisian manner. She looked with practical at her guests, who dined noisily and with great fire, discussing problems furiously, making wide, gestures through the cigarette smoke. Meanwhile the little handful of waiters ran to and fro wildly. Imperious and cries rang at them from all directions. "Gustave! Adolphe!" Their faces expressed a settled despair. They answered calls, commands, oaths in a semi-distraction, among the tables as if pursued by some animal. Their breaths came in . If they had been convict labourers they could not have surveyed their positions with of more unspeakable injury. Withal, they carried incredible masses of dishes and threaded their ways with skill. They served people with such speed and violence that it often resembled a personal assault. They struck two blows at a table and left there a knife and fork. Then came the in a volley. The of this business was loud and bewilderingly rapid, like the of a thousand horses.  
In a remote corner a band of mandolins and guitars played the long, , mad melody of a Spanish waltz. It seemed to go to the hearts of many of the diners. Their eyes glittered with enthusiasm, with abandon, with deviltry. They swung their heads from side to side in movement. High in air curled the smoke from the innumerable cigarettes. The long, black claret bottles were in clusters upon the tables. At an end of the hall two men with grins sang the waltz uproariously, but always a trifle belated.
 
An unsteady person, leaning back in his chair to swift compliments to a woman at another table, suddenly out upon the floor. He to his feet, and, turning to the escort of the woman, heatedly blamed him for the accident. They exchanged a series of tense, bitter insults, which back and between them like pellets. People arose from their chairs and stretched their necks. The musicians stood in a body, their faces turned with expressions of keen excitement toward this quarrel, but their fingers still twinkling over their instruments, sending into the middle of this the , mad, Spanish music. The of the place came in and headlong into the argument, where he thereafter appeared as a creature to the point of , for they buried him at once in long, threats, explanations, charges, every form of known to their voices. The music, the noise of the horses, the voices of the brawlers, gave the whole thing the quality of war.
 
There were two men in the café who seemed to be . Hollanden carefully stacked one lump of sugar upon another in the middle of his saucer and poured cognac over them. He touched a match to the cognac a............