"To the devil with you, zany! You are not grazing! But your beasts are grazing!"
"They eat so little," Andre-Louis apologized, and again essayed his ingratiating smile.
The sergeant grew more terrible than ever. "That is not the point. The point is that you are committing what amounts to a theft, and there's the gaol for thieves."
"Technically, I suppose you are right," sighed André-Louis, and fell to combing his hair again, still looking up into the sergeant's face. "But we have sinned in ignorance. We are grateful to you for the warning." He passed the comb into his left hand, and with his right fumbled in his breeches' pocket, whence there came a faint jingle of coins. "We are desolated to have brought you out of your way. Perhaps for their trouble your men would honour us by stopping at the next inn to drink the health of … of … this M. de La Tour d'Azyr, or any other health that they think proper."
Some of the clouds lifted from the sergeant's brow. But not yet all.
"Well, well," said he, gruffly. "But you must decamp, you understand." He leaned from the saddle to bring his recipient hand to a convenient distance. André-Louis placed in it a three-livre piece.
"In half an hour," said André-Louis.
"Why in half an hour? Why not at once?"
"Oh, but time to break our fast."
They looked at each other. The sergeant next considered the broad piece of silver in his palm. Then at last his features relaxed from their sternness.
"After all," said he, "it is none of our business to play the tipstaves for M. de La Tour d'Azyr. We are of the maréchaussée from Rennes." André-Louis' eyelids played him false by flickering. "But if you linger, look out for the gardes-champêtres of the Marquis. You'll find them not at all accommodating. Well, well—a good appetite to you, monsieur," said he, in valediction.
