The men liked pinching her, because they might pinch her all over without ever encountering a bone.

Boche made room for her beside him and reached slyly under the table to grab her knee.

But she, being accustomed to that sort of thing, quietly tossed off a glass of wine, and related that all the neighbors were at their windows, and that some of the people of the house were beginning to get angry.
"Oh, that's our business," said Madame Boche.

"We're the concierges, aren't we?
Well, we're answerable for good order.

Let them come and complain to us, we'll receive them in a way they don't expect." In the back-room there had just been a furious fight between Nana and Augustine, on account of the Dutch oven, which both wanted to scrape out.