It was long since the old man, accustomed to stale bread,—because he found it cheaper,—had tasted anything so delicious. No alderman ever smacked his lips over the most exquisite turtle soup with greater relish than Peter Manson over his banquet.
"It is very good," he muttered, with a sigh of satisfaction. "I don't fare so well every day. If it hadn't been for that unlucky piece of gold, perhaps the baker would have let me had another loaf at the same price."
He soon despatched the half loaf which he allotted to his evening meal.
"I think I could eat the other half," he said, with unsatisfied hunger; "but I must save that for breakfast. It is hurtful to eat too much. Besides, here is my sausage."
The sausage was rather burned than cooked, but Peter was neither nice nor fastidious. He did not eat the whole of the sausage, however, but reserved one half of this, too, for breakfast, though it proved so acceptable to his palate that he came near yielding to the temptation of eating the whole. But prudence, or rather avarice, prevailed, and shaking his head with renewed determination, he carried it to the closet and placed it on the shelf.
Between seven and eight o'clock Peter prepared to go to bed, partly because this would enable him to dispense with a fire, the cost of which he considered so ruinous. He had but just commenced his preparations for bed when a loud knock was heard at the street door.
At the first sound of the knocking Peter Manson started in affright. Such a thing had not occurred in his experience for years.
"It's some drunken fellow," thought Peter. "He's mistaken the house. I'll blow out the candle, and then he'll think there's nobody here."
He listened again, in hopes to hear the receding steps of the visitor, but in vain. After a brief interval there came another knock, louder and more imperative than the first.
Peter began to feel a little uneasy.