on his master, and under no circumstances,
if possible, permit him to leave the Sucking Calf that night.

The host returned, bearing a platter on which there steamed a ragout
that gave out an appetizing odour; his wife followed with other dishes
and a bottle of Armagnac under her arm. Rabecque busied himself at
once, and his hungry master disposed himself to satisfy the healthiest
appetite in France, when suddenly a shadow fell across the table. A man
had come to stand beside it, his body screening the light of one of the
lamps that hung from a rafter of the ceiling.

"At last!" he exclaimed, and his voice was harsh with ill-humour.

Garnache looked up, pausing in the very act of helping himself to
that ragout. Rabecque looked up from behind his master, and his lips
tightened. The host looked up from the act of drawing the cork of the
flagon he had taken from his wife, and his eyes grew big as in his mind
he prepared a judicious blend of apology and remonstrance wherewith
to soothe this very impatient gentleman. But before he could speak,
Garnache's voice cut sharply into the silence. An interruption at such a
moment vexed him sorely.

"Monsieur says?" quoth he.

"To you, sir--nothing," answered the fellow impudently, and looked him
straight between the eyes.

With a flush mounting to his cheeks, and his brows drawn together in
perplexity, Garnache surveyed him. He was that same traveller who had
lately clamoured to know when he might sup, a man of rather more than
middle height, lithe and active of frame, yet with a breadth of shoulder
and depth of chest that argued strength and endurance as well. He had
fair, wavy hair, which he wore rather longer than was the mode, brown
eyes, and a face which, without being handsome, was yet more than
ordinarily engaging by virtue of its strength and frank ingenuousness.
His dress was his worst feature. It was flamboyant and showy; cheap, and
tawdrily pretentious. Yet he bore himself with the easy dignity of a man
who counts more inferiors than superiors.

Despite the arrogant manner of his address, Garnache felt prepossessed
in the newcomer's favour. But before he could answer him, the host was
speaking.

"Monsieur mistakes..." he began.

"Mistakes?" thundered the other in an accent slightly foreign. "It is
you who mistake if you propose to tell me that this is not my supper.
Am I to wait all night, while every jackanapes who follows me into your
pigsty is to be served b