CHAPTER XXXIII
THEY met the landlord in the passage.
"Welcome, messieurs," said he taking off his cap with a low bow.
"Come, we are not in Germany," said Gerard.
In the public room they found the mistress, a buxom woman of forty. She curtsied to them and smiled right cordially. "Give yourself the trouble of sitting ye down, fair sir," said she to Gerard, and dusted two chairs with her apron, not that they needed it.
"Thank you, dame," said Gerard. "Well," thought he, "this is a polite nation: the trouble of sitting down? That will I with singular patience; and presently the labour of eating, also the toil of digestion, and finally, by Hercules his aid, the strain of going to bed, and the struggle of sinking fast asleep."
"Why, Denys, what are you doing? ordering supper for only two?"
"Why not?"
"What can we sup without waiting for forty more? Burgundy for ever!"