“That was a bold thought for a swineherd. And how would you tell your tale, with one devoured? or get the little pig out of the pit? or skin and dismember and cook it when hauled to the surface?”
“All that I had not considered.”
“But you desired to eat pork? And what would you say now to a pig’s foot à la St Menehould?”
The jest bubbled out of me; I could not withhold it. Her mind was as quick as her speech was measured.
“Ah!” she cried, “but I remember. And you were in Février’s, monsieur?”
“At the table next to yours.”
“That is strange, is it not!”
She gave a little scornful shift to her shoulders.
“It is all nothing in these mad days. The question is, monsieur, if you can put the little beast out of his pain?”
I looked into the pit. Two beady eyes, withdrawn into a fat neck, peered up at me.