that smells good! you know I used to be a good cook; do you recollect how you used to lick your fingers? You were among the first who tasted any of my dishes, and I think you relished them tolerably." While speaking, Caderousse went on peeling a fresh supply of onions.
"But," said Andrea, ill-temperedly, "pardieu! if you disturbed me only to breakfast with you, the devil take you!"
"My boy," said Caderousse, sententiously, "one can talk while eating. And then, you ungrateful being! you are not pleased to see an old friend? I am weeping with joy."
He was truly crying, but it would have been difficult to say whether joy or the onions produced the greatest effect on the lachrymal gland of the old inn-keeper of the Pont-du-Gard.
"Hold your tongue, hypocrite!" said Andrea; "you love me! You!"
"Yes, I do, or may the devil take me. I know it is a weakness," said Caderousse, "but it overpowers me."
"And yet it has not prevented your sending for me to play me some trick."
"Come!" said Caderousse, wiping his large knife on his apron, "if I did not like you, do you think I should endure the wretched life you lead me? Think for a moment: you have your servant's clothes on—you, therefore, keep a servant; I have none, and am obliged to prepare my own meals; you abuse my cookery because you dine at the table-d'hôte of the Hôtel des Princes, or the Café de Paris. Well! I, too, could keep a servant; I, too, could have a tilbury; I, too, could dine where I like; but why do I not? Because I would not annoy my little Benedetto. Come! just acknowledge that I could, eh!"
This address was accompanied by a look which was by no means difficult to understand.
"Well!" said Andrea, "admitting your love, why do you want me to breakfast with you?"
"That I may have the pleasure of seeing you, my little fellow."
"Of seeing me? what for? since we have made all our arrangements?"
"Eh! dear friend," said Caderousse, "are wills ever made without codicils? But first of all, you came to breakfast, did you not? Well! sit down, and let us begin with these sardines, and this fresh butter, which I have put on some vine-leaves, to please you, you rogue. Ah! yes; you look at my room, my four straw chairs, the plaster figures, three francs each. But what do you expect? this is not the Hôtel des Princes."
"Come! you are growing discontented, you are no longer happy; you, who only wished to appear a retired baker."
Caderousse sighed.
