At the Lilas, the management had changed, and two of the barmen, André and Jean, were going to have to wear white barcoats and shave their mustaches.

Hemingway and Even Shipman meet there and talk about Russian writers.

Shipman orders two whiskies and Jean overfills them. He is protesting having to shave. He was in the dragoons and has a cavalry mustache.

He brings them two more, and overfills them, too.

The two men drink them, in solidarity.

The next day, Jean is off, and Hemingway asks André if he has seen Shipman.

He's with Jean, he says, working in his garden.

New management takes over and you have to shave your mustache. Serve bovril instead of French onion soup.

Wasn't it an ad for Bovril that Gordon Comstock worked into a poem in Keep the Aspidistra Flying?