Oh yes, the simpleton had both food and drink in his wallet. It was none of the best, but such as it was he was willing to share it.
He reached into his wallet and pulled out the piece of dough, but what was his surprise to find that it was dough no longer, but a fine cake, all made of the whitest flour. The old man snatched the cake from John and ate it all up in a trice. There was not so much as a crumb of it left.
“Poor pickings for me!” said John.
And now the old gray man was thirsty. “What have you in that bottle?” he asked.
“Oh, that was only sour beer.”
The old man took the bottle and opened it. “Sour beer! Why it is wine,” he cried, “and of the very best, too.”
And the simpleton could tell it was by the smell of it. But the smell of it was all he got, for the old man raised the bottle to his lips, and when he put it down there was not a drop left in it.
“And now I may go thirsty as well as hungry,” said John.
“Never mind that,” said the old man. “After this you may eat and drink of the best whenever you will. Go on into the forest and take the first turning to the right. There you will see a hollow oak tree. Cut it down, and whatever you find inside of it you may keep; it belongs to me, and it is I who give it to you.”
Then of a sudden the old man was gone, and where he went the simpleton could have told no one.