“Come—you don’t even know these people? Then who invited us here?”
“None invited us. We but came; that is all.”
“Why, woman, this is a most extraordinary performance. The effrontery of it is beyond admiration. We blandly march into a man’s house, and cram it full of the only really valuable nobility the sun has yet discovered in the earth, and then it turns out that we don’t even know the man’s name. How did you ever venture to take this extravagant liberty? I supposed, of course, it was your home. What will the man say?”
“What will he say? Forsooth what can he say but give thanks?”
“Thanks for what?”
Her face was filled with a puzzled surprise:
“Verily, thou troublest mine understanding with strange words. Do ye dream that one of his estate is like to have the honor twice in his life to entertain company such as we have brought to grace his house withal?”
“Well, no—when you come to that. No, it’s an even bet that this is the first time he has had a treat like this.”
“Then let him be thankful, and manifest the same by grateful speech and due humility; he were a dog, else, and the heir and ancestor of dogs.”