"Because one might get a piece of rope cheap, and we're greatly in want of some, my poor Catharine! That Colonel Fougas has given me a shiver."
"Some more of your notions! Come to supper, my love."
"Come on!"
The angular Baucis conducted her Philemon into a large and beautiful dining-room, where Berbel served a repast worthy of the gods. Soup with little balls of aniseeded bread, fish-balls with black sauce, mutton-balls stuffed, game balls, sour-krout cooked in lard and garnished with fried potatoes, roast hare with currant jelly, deviled crabs, salmon from the Vistula, jellies, and fruit tarts. Six bottles of Rhine-wine selected from the best vintages were awaiting, in their silver caps, the master's kiss. But the lord of all these good things was neither hungry nor thirsty. He ate by nibbles and drank by sips, all the time expecting a grand consummation, which he did not have to expect along. A formidable rap of the knocker soon resounded through the house.
Nicholas Meiser trembled. His wife tried to reassure him. "It's nothing," said she. "The president of the bank told me that he was coming to see you. He offers to pay us the exchange, if we'll take paper instead of specie."
"It is about money, sure as Fate!" cried the good man. "Hell itself is coming to see us!"
At the same instant, the servant rushed into the room, crying, "Oh, Sir! Oh, Madame! It's the Frenchman of the three coffins! Jesus! Mary, Mother of God!"
Fougas saluted them, and said, "Don't disturb yourselves, good people, I beg of you. We've a little matter to discuss together, and I'm ready to explain it to you in two words. You're in a hurry, so am I; you've not had supper, neither have I!"
Frau Meiser, more rigid and more emaciated than a thirteenth-century statue, opened wide her toothless mouth. Terror paralyzed her. The man, better prepared for the visit of the phantom, cocked his revolver under the table and took aim at the Colonel, crying "Vade retro, Satanas!" The exorcism and the pistol missed fire together.
Meiser was not at all discouraged: he snapped the six barrels one after the other at the demon, who stood watching him do it. Not one went off.