'White wine, dry, your oldest; and brain-sausage for the first course!'
'You are right, comrade,' said Groguillioche; 'when I think of our wine of Burgundy, of the precious Beaune gold as my Lison's hair, my heart bursts with melancholy. Most true is it: "Like people, like wine." Let us drink, comrade, to the prosperity of our France.'
'Du grand Dieu soit mauldit à outrance
Qui mal vouldroit au royaume de France!'
'What say they?' murmured Scarabullo into Gorgoglio's ear.
'Scurvy talk!' said the latter. 'They praise their own wine, and praise not ours.'
'Just look at those two French cocks,' grumbled the tinman; 'my hand itches to be at them.'
Meanwhile Tibaldo, the German host, with fat belly on thin legs, and a formidable bunch of keys at his leathern girdle, drew from the cask half brentas of wine, and served them to the foreigners in an earthenware jug, looking most suspiciously at his guests. Bonnivart drank his potion at one draught, and found it excellent: none the less, he spat, making a face of disgust. Just then Lotte, Tibaldo's daughter passed by; a slim, flaxen-haired little lass, with kind blue eyes like her father's. The Gascon nudged his comrade, twirled his moustaches seductively, drank, and trolled out a song, to which Groguillioche added a husky chorus:—
'Charles fera si grandes batailles
Qu'il conquerra les Itailles,