“So they are, so they are. The dinner-hour is the summer of the day: full of sunshine, I grant; but not like the mellow autumn of supper. A dinner, you know, may go off rather stiffly; but invariably suppers are jovial. At dinners, ’tis not till you take in sail, furl the cloth, bow the lady-passengers out, and make all snug; ’tis not till then, that one begins to ride out the gale with complacency. But at these suppers—Good Oro! your cup is empty, my dear demi-god!—But at these suppers, I say, all is snug and ship-shape before you begin; and when you begin, you waive the beginning, and begin in the middle. And as for the cloth,—but tell us, Braid-Beard, what that old king of Franko, Ludwig the Fat, said of that matter. The cloth for suppers, you know. It’s down in your chronicles.”
“My lord,”—wiping his beard,—“Old Ludwig was of opinion, that at suppers the cloth was superfluous, unless on the back of some jolly good friar. Said he, ‘For one, I prefer sitting right down to the unrobed table.’”
“High and royal authority, that of Ludwig the Fat,” said Babbalanja, “far higher than the authority of Ludwig the Great:—the one, only great by courtesy; the other, fat beyond a peradventure. But they are equally famous; and in their graves, both on a par. For after devouring many a fair province, and grinding the poor of his realm, Ludwig the Great has long since, himself, been devoured by very small worms, and ground into very fine dust. And after stripping many a venison rib, Ludwig the Fat has had his own polished and bleached in the Valley of Death; yea, and his cranium chased with corrodings, like the carved flagon once held to its jaws.”
“My lord! my lord!”—cried Abrazza to Media—“this ghastly devil of yours grins worse than a skull. I feel the worms crawling over me!—By Oro we must eject him!”
“No, no, my lord. Let him sit there, as of old the Death’s-head graced the feasts of the Pharaohs—let him sit—let him sit—for Death but imparts a flavor to Life—Go on: wag your tongue without fear, Azzageddi!—But come, Braid-Beard! let’s hear more of the Ludwigs.”
“Well, then, your Highness, of all the eighteen royal Ludwigs of Franko—”
“Who like so many ten-pins, all in a row,” interposed Babbalanja— “have been bowled off the course by grim Death.”
“Heed him not,” said Media—“go on.”
“The Debonnaire, the Pious, the Stammerer, the Do-Nothing, the Juvenile, the Quarreler:—of all these, I say, Ludwig the Fat was the best table-man of them all. Such a full orbed paunch was his, that no way could he devise of getting to his suppers, but by getting right into them. Like the Zodiac his table was circular, and full in the middle he sat, like a sun;—all his jolly stews and ragouts revolving around him.”
“Yea,” said Babbalanja, “a very round sun was Ludwig the Fat. No wonder he’s down in the chronicles; several ells about the waist, and King of cups and Tokay. Truly, a famous king: three hundred-weight of lard, with a diadem on top: lean brains and a fat doublet—a demijohn of a demi-god!”