The inn-keeper’s wife came to the stable.
“Does not Monsieur wish to breakfast?”
“Come, that is true; I even have a good appetite.”
He followed the woman, who had a rosy, cheerful face; she led him to the public room where there were tables covered with waxed cloth.
“Make haste!” said he; “I must start again; I am in a hurry.”
A big Flemish servant-maid placed his knife and fork in all haste; he looked at the girl with a sensation of comfort.
“That is what ailed me,” he thought; “I had not breakfasted.”
His breakfast was served; he seized the bread, took a mouthful, and then slowly replaced it on the table, and did not touch it again.
A carter was eating at another table; he said to this man:—
“Why is their bread so bitter here?”