his hand.

"So, you're having a feast here, don't disturb yourselves," he said
roughly.

"Oh, Lord!" cried Mother Barberin, putting the frying pan quickly on the
floor, "is it you, Jerome."

Then, taking me by the arm she dragged me towards the man who had
stopped in the doorway.

"Here's your father."

CHAPTER II

MY ADOPTED FATHER

Mother Barberin kissed her husband; I was about to do the same when he
put out his stick and stopped me.

"What's this?... you told me...."

"Well, yes, but it isn't true ... because...."

"Ah, it isn't true, eh?"

He stepped towards me with his stick raised; instinctively I shrunk
back. What had I done? Nothing wrong, surely! I was only going to kiss
him. I looked at him timidly, but he had turned from me and was speaking
to Mother Barberin.

"So you're keeping Shrove Tuesday," he said. "I'm glad, for I'm
famished. What have you got for supper?"

"I was making some pancakes and apple fritters."

"So I see, but you're not going to give pancakes to a man who has
covered the miles that I have."

"I haven't anything else. You see we didn't expect you."

"What? nothing else! Nothing for supper!" He glanced round the kitchen.

"There's some butter."

He looked up at the ceiling, at the spot where the bacon used to hang,
but for a long time there had been nothing on the hook; only a few ropes
of onions and garlic hung from the beam now.

"Here's some onions," he said, knocking a rope down with his big stick;
"with four or five onions and a piece of butter we'll have a good soup.
Take out the pancakes and fry the onions in the pan!"

"Take the pancakes out of the frying pan!"

Without a word, Mother Barberin hurried to do what her husband asked. He
sat down on a chair by the corner of the fireplace. I had not dared to
leave the place where his stick had sent me. Leaning against the table,
I looked at him.

He was a man about fifty with a hard face and rough ways. His head
leaned a little bit towards his right shoulder, on account of the wound
he had received, and this deformity gave him a still more forbidding
aspect.

Mother Barberin had put the frying pan again on the fire.

"Is it with a little bit of butter like that you're going to try and
make a soup?" he asked. Thereupon he seized the plate with the butter
and threw it all into the pan. No more butter ... then ... no more
pancakes.

At any other moment I should have been greatly upset at this
cata