"Ah, monsieur," rejoined Master Biscarros, "I wouldn't presume to censure your friend, for he is certainly free to come or not; but it's a very bad habit to keep people waiting." "He has no such habit, and I am much surprised at his tardiness." "I am something more than surprised, monsieur; I am deeply grieved, for the joint will be burned." "Take it off the spit." "Then it will be cold." "Put another to the fire." "It won't be cooked." "In that case, my friend, do as you please," said the youth, unable, notwithstanding his ill-humor, to refrain from smiling at the inn-keeper's despair: "I intrust the matter to your supreme wisdom." "There is no wisdom, not even King Solomon's own, that would make a warmed-over dinner eatable." Having propounded that axiom, which Boileau was to express in verse twenty years later, Master Biscarros, shaking his head sadly, entered the inn. Thereupon the youth, as if to cheat his impatience, drew back into the chamber, and was heard for a moment or two stamping noisily back and forth across the floor; but almost immediately, thinking that he heard horses' footsteps in the distance, he rushed to the window again. "At last!" he cried; "there he is! God be praised!" As he spoke, the head of a mounted man appeared beyond the thicket where the nightingale was singing, to whose melodious notes the young man seemed to pay no attention, doubtless because of his intense preoccupation. To his great astonishment, he waited in vain for the horseman to come out upon the road, for he turned to the right and rode in among the bushes, where his hat soon disappeared,--an unmistakable indication that he had alighted. A moment later the watcher saw through the branches, as they were cautiously put aside, a gray helmet, and the last rays of the setting sun were reflected on a musket-barrel. The young man remained at his window lost in thought; evidently the man hiding in the thicket was not the friend he expected, and the impatient expression which darkened his mobile features gave place to an expression of curiosity. Soon a second hat appeared beside the first, and the young man drew back out of sight. The same gray helmet, the same glistening musket-barrel, the same manœuvring in the thicket. The new arrival addressed some words to the other, which the watcher could not hear because of the distance; and, in consequence doubtless of the information he received, he plunged into the hedge which ran parallel to the thicket, crouched behind a rock, and waited. From his elevated position the young man could see his hat above the rock. Beside the hat gleamed a luminous point,--it was the end of the musket-barrel. A feeling of terror took possession of the young gentleman's mind, and he drew back farther and farther as he watched.