"Are you decided, then?" asked the abbé.
"Yes," said the innkeeper. "I will tell you everything."
The woman retired after nodding to her husband.
"Avant tout, monsieur," began the innkeeper, "I must ask Your Reverence to promise never to reveal that it is I who have told you these things. For the people of whom it is a question have become so rich and powerful, that they will smile, and with their little fingers crush me like a fly that has tried to sting them."
"Be tranquil," said the abbé. "Not for the Ring, not even for the favors of Luthienne would a priest of Lottaloria betray a confidence. But pray resume your account of the fate of the gaffier."
"Bien, he was inconsolable, and would stay up all night pacing and weeping and praying, so that I, who lived below, could barely shut my eyes at night. I made an attempt to console him with a rabbit casserole – in vain. Rosédès begged him to move in with her, but he refused, even after they demolished Rue Baguechotte to make room for the Count de Pérégrin's palace, thereby constraining him to move into the inn, and ruining his pommes de terre. He would wait for his son to return, said he, be it until the end of the Seventh Age."
