“If you will sit down,” he said, “I will bring you something to eat.”
He made off in a shuffling gait dragging his feet along the bare boards of the floor. In a few minutes he returned with a wooden bowl of gruel steaming hot and two large wooden spoons.
By this time we were able to look around and make an estimate of the place. The room was like a stable for filth. The one long table that stood in the middle was cut and scarred with figures where men had dug into it with their knives. Cobwebs hung in every nook and corner. An old lamp was fastened to a slab of wood on the wall, but even if it had been lit, I think there would have shone little light through it, for it was as black as the sooty rafters over our heads.
To all this there was an air of confusion everywhere. A chair with the legs broken off lay in a corner. A great hole was worn in the bottom panels of the door that led to the kitchen where a dog had by slow degrees pawed his way through. Alongside of it, on the wall, the plaster had a large dent in it where something had struck and just beside it a red smear that reminded me of the color of human blood.
You may be sure that we ate little. Even if the food had been savory the sight of the old fox of a landlord was enough to take our appetites away, for he hung over us like a sinister shadow with his nightcap in his hands and his beady eyes watching every morsel as it passed down our throats.
“The Dwarf of Angers,” he reminded us, when we laid our spoons aside, “—he’s a grand man, isn’t he?”
Then came that short cackling laugh that stabbed me like a knife.
“He saved us from death,” I remarked.
The old fellow gave a start as though he was suddenly clapped on the shoulder.
“He did, did he?” he said. And then after a while, “And he sent you to me?” He cackled again as though he had reason to be highly flattered. “And by any chance did he give you a message?”