“The trarp , why, I put it on my own stomach.”
“And what kind of a trarp did you use?”
“Oh! a first-rate trarp !”
“What was it?”
“The one I made to catch the grey wolf with, that used to kill M. Destournelles’ sheep.”
“Not such a first-rate one, then, for the grey wolf ate up your bait, and then bolted.”
“You know why he was not caught, General.”
“No, I do not.”
“Because it was the black wolf that belonged to old Thibault, the sabot-maker.”
“It could not have been Thibault’s black wolf, for you said yourself just this moment that the wolf that used to come and kill M. Destournelles’ sheep was a grey one.”
“He is grey now, General; but thirty years ago, when Thibault the sabot-maker was alive, he was black; and, to assure you of the truth of this, look at my hair, which was black as a raven’s thirty years ago, and now is as grey as the Doctor’s.”
The Doctor was a cat, an animal of some fame, that you will find mentioned in my Mémoires and known as the Doctor on account of the magnificent fur which nature had given it for a coat.
“Yes,” replied my father, “I know your tale about Thibault, the sabot-maker; but, if the black wolf is the devil, Mocquet, as you say he is, he would not change colour.”