Æsop's eyes travelled with a careful and contemptuous scrutiny over the person of his old employer. "You have. You didn't wear quite such fine clothes when I saw you last, my friend. What luck it is to have a master who makes a rich marriage!" As he said these words the landlord emerged from the Inn with a tray in his hands that bore a bottle and glasses. As he approached, Æsop swung his legs off the table and resumed the ordinary attitude of a feaster. The landlord placed the tray on the table, thankfully accepted Æsop's money, and with many salutations returned to the shelter of the Inn. Æsop filled two glasses with a shining white wine and pushed one to Peyrolles. "Drink!" he said, gruffly. Peyrolles waved his yellow fingers in polite refusal. "I thank you. No." In a second Æsop had sprung to his feet angrily, and, leaning over the table, thrust his own twisted visage close to the yellow mask in front of him. "Damn you!" he screamed--"damn you! are you too proud to drink with a man who has travelled all the way from Madrid on your dirty business? Let me tell you--" The man's attitude of menace, the man's violent words, clearly alarmed Monsieur Peyrolles, who interrupted him nervously with a voice quavering with protestation: "No, no, you need not. Of course, not too proud. Delighted." Æsop dropped into his seat again. "That's better. Your health." He lifted the glass to his lips as he spoke and slowly drained it. There was no sound of solicitation for his companion's welfare in his words, there was no expression of pleasure on his face as he did so. He took the good wine as he took all bright and kindly things, sourly. Peyrolles hastened to follow the example of his pledge. "Your health," he said, and sipped diffidently at the wine, and then, finding it agreeable, finished it. There was a little pause, and then Æsop spoke again. "Seventeen years," he murmured, with a chuckle--"seventeen years since we last met, on the morning, as I remember, after the little mishap in the moat of Caylus." Peyrolles shivered, and seemed uneasy. Æsop paid no heed to his evident discomfort. "What a wild-goose chase you sent us all on, I and Staupitz and the others--flying into Spain to find Lagardere and the child. The others hunted for him, as I suppose you know, with the results which, also, I suppose you know." Peyrolles nodded feebly. His yellow face was several tinges yellower, his teeth seemed to threaten to chatter, and he looked very unhappy. His voice was grave as he spoke: "Those who did find him were not fortunate." Æsop laughed. "They were fools," he asserted. "Well, for my part, I said to myself that the wise course for me to follow was not to waste my strength, my energy, and my breath in chasing Lagardere all over a peninsula, but to wait quietly for Lagardere to come to me. Madrid, I reasoned, is the centre of Spain; everyone in Spain comes to Madrid sooner or later; _ergo_, sooner or later Lagardere will come to Madrid."