“For whom are you looking, my fine fellow?” asked the fruiteress on the opposite side.
“Monsieur Pailletin, if you please, my good woman,” replied Andrea.
“A retired baker?” asked the fruiteress.
“Exactly.”
“He lives at the end of the yard, on the left, on the third story.”
Andrea went as she directed him, and on the third floor he found a hare’s paw, which, by the hasty ringing of the bell, it was evident he pulled with considerable ill-temper. A moment after Caderousse’s face appeared at the grating in the door.
“Ah! you are punctual,” said he, as he drew back the door.
“Confound you and your punctuality!” said Andrea, throwing himself into a chair in a manner which implied that he would rather have flung it at the head of his host.
“Come, come, my little fellow, don’t be angry. See, I have thought about you—look at the good breakfast we are going to have; nothing but what you are fond of.”
Andrea, indeed, inhaled the scent of something cooking which was not unwelcome to him, hungry as he was; it was that mixture of fat and garlic peculiar to Provençal kitchens of an inferior order, added to that of dried fish, and above all, the pungent smell of musk and cloves. These odors escaped from two deep dishes which were covered and placed on a stove, and from a copper pan placed in an old iron pot. In an adjoining room Andrea saw also a tolerably clean table prepared for two, two bottles of wine sealed, the one with green, the other with yellow, a supply of brandy in a decanter, and a measure of fruit in a cabbage-leaf, cleverly arranged on an earthenware plate.