Harree had got his
broom and was assisting. Nearer and nearer they came; converging, they
united their separate heaps of filth in a loudly stinking single mound at
the door. Brooms were stacked against the wall in the corner. The men
strolled back to their mattresses.
Monsieur Auguste, whose French had not been able to keep pace with
Fritz's English, saw his chance, and proposed "now that the Room is all
clean, let us go take a little walk, the three of us." Fritz understood
perfectly, and rose, remarking as he fingered his immaculate chin "Well,
I guess I'll take a shave before the bloody _planton_ comes"--and
Monsieur Auguste, B., and I started down the room.
It was in shape oblong, about 80 feet by 40, unmistakably ecclesiastical
in feeling; two rows of wooden pillars, spaced at intervals of fifteen
feet, rose to a vaulted ceiling 25 or 30 feet above the floor. As you
stood with your back to the door, and faced down the room, you had in the
near right-hand corner (where the brooms stood) six pails of urine. On
the right-hand long wall, a little beyond the angle of this corner, a few
boards, tacked together in any fashion to make a two-sided screen four
feet in height, marked the position of a _cabinet d'aisance_, composed of
a small coverless tin pail identical with the other six, and a board of
the usual design which could be placed on the pail or not as desired.
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