“It is the best room in the inn. King Marsillus slept here the day——”
“Come! I hope you are not going to talk more absurdity of that kind to me. Learn to understand better those with whom you have to deal. Where’s the bed?”
“Yonder, sir.”
“That a bed! By the beard of Solomon! what you have the impudence to call a bed would have horrified Job himself, and he passes for a person not easily dissatisfied. What is all that hanging about the curtains?”
“Those are cobwebs,” said Ali, with an air of satisfaction. “We take them down when our customers wish it, but they never do.”
“How is that?” asked Porc-en-Truie.
“Why, you see,” said the other, quietly, “the spider is insectivorous.”
“And you dare bring me here?” asked Porc-en-Truie, pale with rage. “I dare swear to your lordship there is not a better bed in the house.”
“Let me see yours;” and the knight seized the landlord, and made him conduct him to his own bedroom. It was not palatial by any means, but all was clean and neat in the host’s room, and the bed looked inviting.
“How, rogue! you would sleep in this lordly bed without a scruple, while I am served as food for the spiders you rear! Leave the room, and thank Heaven that you leave it by the door instead of the window!”