In general, the mountain publicans are not only very obliging, but equal to even the most unexpected demands. The colonel, who never brags, had boasted for the last half-hour what he was going to do at this repast. In point of fact, we were famishing.
A man was standing with his back to the fire, his hands thrust underneath his coat-tails, and a pipe in his mouth. Either the pipe illuminated his nose, or his nose the pipe. He also had a nervous contraction of the muscles of his face, causing an involuntary twitching of the eyebrows, and at the same time of his ears, up and down. This habit, taken in connection with the perfect immobility of the figure, made on us the impression of a statue winking. We therefore hesitated to address it—I mean him—until a moment’s puzzled scrutiny satisfied us that it—I mean the strange object—was alive. He merely turned his head when we entered the room, wagged his ears playfully, winked furiously, and then resumed his first attitude. In all probability he was some stranger like ourselves.
I accosted him. “Sir,” said I, “can you tell us if it is possible to procure a dinner here?”
The man took the pipe from his mouth, shook out the ashes very deliberately, and, without looking at me, tranquilly observed,
“You would like dinner, then?”
“Would we like dinner? We breakfasted at Bartlett, and have passed six hours fasting.”
“And eleven miles. You see, a long way between meals,” interjected George, with decision.
“It’s after the regular dinner,” drawled the apathetic smoker, using his thumb for a stopper, and stooping for a brand with which to relight his pipe.
“In that case we are willing to pay for any additional trouble,” I hastened to say.
The man seemed reflecting. We were hungry; that was incontestable; but we were also shivering, and he maintained his position astride the hearth-stone, like the fabled Colossus of old.