But it merely
meant a bite for each of us. However, on stopping at last at Conlie
station--some sixteen or seventeen miles from Le Mans--we all hastily
scrambled out of the train, rushed into a little inn, and almost fought
like wild beasts for scraps of food. Then on we went once more, still very
slowly, still stopping again and again, sometimes for an hour at a
stretch, until, half numbed by the cold, weary of stamping our feet, and
still ravenous, we reached the little town of Sille-le-Guillaume, which is
not more than eight or nine miles from Conlie.
At Sille I secured a tiny garret-like room at the crowded Hotel de la
Croix d'Or, a third-rate hostelry, which was already invaded by officers,
soldiers, railway officials, and others who had quitted Le Mans before I
had managed to do so. My comparatively youthful appearance won for me,
however, the good favour of the buxom landlady, who, after repeatedly
declaring to other applicants that she had not a corner left in the whole
house, took me aside and said in an undertone: "listen, I will put you in
a little _cabinet_ upstairs. I will show you the way by and by. But don't
tell anybody." And she added compassionately: "_Mon pauvre garcon_, you
look frozen.
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