“How jolly he is,” whispered Media to Babbalanja.
“Ay, his lungs laugh loud; but is laughing, rejoicing?”
“Help! help!” cried Borabolla “lay me down! lay me down! good gods, what a twinge!”
The goblet fell from his hand; the purple flew from his wine to his face; and Borabolla fell back into the arms of his servitors. “That gout! that gout!” he groaned. “Lord! lord! no more cursed wine will I drink!”
Then at ten paces distant, a clumsy attendant let fall a trencher—“Take it off my foot, you knave!”
Afar off another entered gallanting a calabash—“Look out for my toe, you hound!”
During all this, the attendants tenderly nursed him. And in good time, with its thousand fangs, the gout-fiend departed for a while.
Reprieved, the old king brightened up; by degrees becoming jolly as ever.
“Come! let us be merry again,” he cried, “what shall we eat? and what shall we drink? that infernal gout is gone; come, what will your worships have?”
So at it once more we went.