But before he could answer him, the host was speaking.
"Monsieur mistakes..." he began.
"Mistakes ?" thundered the other in an accent slightly foreign.

"It is you who mistake if you propose to tell me that this is not my supper.
Am I to wait all night, while every jackanapes who follows me into your pigsty is to be served before me ?" "Jackanapes ?" said Garnache thoughtfully, and looked the man in the face again.

Behind the stranger pressed his three companions now, whilst the troopers across the room forgot their card-play to watch the altercation that seemed to impend.
The foreigner--for such, indeed, his French proclaimed him--turned half-contemptuously to the host, ignoring Garnache with an air that was studiously offensive.
"Jackanapes ?" murmured Garnache again, and he, too, turned to the host.
"Tell me, Monsieur l'Hote," said he, "where do the jackanapes bury their dead in Grenoble?
I may need the information." Before the distressed landlord could utter a word, the stranger had wheeled about again to face Garnache.

"What shall that mean ?" he asked sharply, a great fierceness in his glance.
"That Grenoble may be witnessing the funeral of a foreign bully by to-morrow, Monsieur l'Etranger," said Garnache, showing his teeth in a pleasant smile.

He became conscious in that moment of a pressure on his shoulder blade, but paid no heed to it, intent on watching the other's countenance.