"Not even mine?" insisted Rouletabille.
The innkeeper looked at him sideways and said gruffly:
"Not even yours."
The omelette ready, we sat down at table and were silently eating, when the door was pushed open and an old woman, dressed in rags, leaning on a stick, her head doddering, her white hair hanging loosely over her wrinkled forehead, appeared on the threshold.
"Ah!—there you are, Mother Angenoux!—It's long since we saw you last," said our host.
"I have been very ill, very nearly dying," said the old woman. "If ever you should have any scraps for the Bête du Bon Dieu—?"
And she entered, followed by a cat, larger than any I had ever believed could exist. The beast looked at us and gave so hopeless a miau that I shuddered. I had never heard so lugubrious a cry.
As if drawn by the cat's cry a man followed the old woman in. It was the Green Man. He saluted by raising his hand to his cap and seated himself at a table near to ours.
"A glass of cider, Daddy Mathieu," he said.
As the Green Man entered, Daddy Mathieu had started violently; but visibly mastering himself he said:—
"I've no more cider; I served the last bottles to these gentlemen."
"Then give me a glass of white wine," said the Green Man, without showing the least surprise.
"I've no more white wine—no more anything," said Daddy Mathieu, surlily.
101
