Slate (drink at) : locut. There used to be a wine merchant at the Barriere Montparnasse; the boss not knowing how to read or write, the customers themselves marked their expenses on a slate using a piece of chalk. One day the good man noticed that the consumers got along, and that the last to mark was erasing with his sleeve, as if by mistake, the previous accounts. He cut off the credit, but the expression of drink on the slate stayed