“My lord, it was taken, in the month of June, from a Bordeaux brigantine on its way to Genoa.”
“H’m, h’m,” said Trimalcyon, tasting it, “it is good, very good, but there is the inconvenience of supplying ourselves as we do, friend Pog: we never have the same quality, so if we get accustomed to one kind of wine, we meet with cruel disappointments. Ah! our trade is not a bed of roses. But you do not drink! Fill Seigneur Fog’s glass, Swan-skin,” said Trimalcyon, to the white Circassian, pointing to his guest’s cup.
Pog, as a refusal, placed his finger over his glass.
“At least, let us drink to the success of our descent upon La Ciotat, comrade.”
Pog replied to this new invitation by a movement of contemptuous impatience.
“As you please, comrade,” said Trimalcyon, without the slightest indication of being offended by the refusal and haughty manner of his guest, “it is just as well not to trust myself to your invocations; the devil knows your voice, and he always thinks you are calling him. But you are wrong to disdain that ham, it is from Westphalia, I think,—is it not, you scoundrel?”
“Yes, my lord,” said the dwarf, “it came from that Dutch fly-boat, arrested as it sailed out of the strait of Sardinia. It was destined for the Viceroy of Naples.” At that moment the flourishes of the musicians ceased; a noise, at first quite indistinct, but increasing by degrees, soon became loud and threatening. The clanking of chains and complaints of the galley-slaves could be heard, and, finally, rising above the tumult, the voices of the spahis and the cracking of the coxswain’s whip.
Trimalcyon seemed so accustomed to these cries, that he continued to drink a glass of wine that he was carrying to his lips, and carelessly remarked, as he set his glass on the table:
“There are some dogs that want to bite; fortunately their chains are good and strong. Crow-provender, go and see why the musicians have stopped playing. I will have them given twenty blows of the cowhide if they stop again, instead of blowing their trumpets. I am too good. I love the arts too much. Instead of selling these do-nothings in Algiers, I have kept them to make music, and that is the way they behave! Ah! if they were not too feeble for the crew, they should find out what it is to handle the oar.”
“They are certainly too weak for that, my lord,” said the negro dwarf; “the comedians that you captured with them on that galley from Barcelona are still at the house of Jousouf, who bought them. He cannot get two pieces of gold for a single one of the singing, blowing cattle.”