“’Tis but for a night,” returned my wife, in consolatory tones. “It is only what we might have expected, for saith not the poet:
‘Inns are nasty, dusty, fusty,
Both with smoke and rubbish musty’?”
Soon we mounted the groaning stairs to our dormitory, and found the house to be a veritable
“Kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And bedrooms dirty, bare, and small.”
The room assigned to us might have been smaller, the furniture might have been cheaper and older—possibly; but to have conceived my blooming bride in a more unsuitable place—impossible. I asked for better accommodation; Boniface shook his head solemnly, (I thought I heard his few brains rattle in his great stupid skull) and muttered that it was the best he had, and if we did not like it we might leave and look elsewhere.
“We must make the best of it, my dear. The landlord is only bound to provide reasonable and proper accommodation, even if there were better in the house; he need not give his guests the precise rooms they may select.”[6]
We resolved to display the Christian grace of resignation.
As speedily as possible we arranged our toilets and descended once more to the lower regions, with the faint hope that the dining-room might be better furnished with the good things of this life than either the parlor or bed-room. Sad to relate, the fates were still against us: we found, on entering the salle à manger, a couple of small tables put together in the middle of the room, covered with three or four cloths of different ages and dates of washing, and arranged as much like one as the circumstances of the case would allow. Upon these were laid knives and forks; some of the knife-handles were green, others red, and a few yellow, and as all the forks were black, the combination of colors was exceedingly striking. Soon the rest of the paraphernalia and the comestibles appeared, and then Josh Billings’ description became strictly applicable; “Tea tew kold tew melt butter; fride potatoze which resembled the chips a tew-inch augur makes in its journey thru an oke log; bread solid; biefstake about az thick as blister plaster, and az tough as a hound’s ear; table kovered with plates; a few scared-tew-death pickles on one of them, and 6 fly-indorsed crackers on another; a pewterunktoon kaster, with 3 bottles in it—one without any mustard, and one with tew inches of drowned flies and vinegar in it.”
Fortunately, long abstinence came to our aid, and hunger, which covers a multitude of sins in cookery and “dishing up,” was present, and our manducatory powers were good; so we managed to supply the cravings of the inner man to some extent.
“What is this?” I asked of the landlord, as he handed me a most suspicious looking fluid.