“It is a little one,” said he, “but I know it of old for a good one; Les Trois Poissons.' But what is this writ up? I mind not this;” and he pointed to an inscription that ran across the whole building in a single line of huge letters. “Oh, I see. 'Ici on loge a pied et a cheval,'” said Denys, going minutely through the inscription, and looking bumptious when he had effected it.
Gerard did look, and the sentence in question ran thus:
“ON NE LOGE CEANS A CREDIT; CE BONHOMME EST MORT, LES MAUVAIS PAIEURS L'ONT TUE.”
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.