“Where’s the capon?” said my patron to his man.
“Capon!” echoed the ghost of a servant; “the——”
“Has not the rascal sent it?” cried the master.
“Rascal!” repeated the man, apparently terrified.
“I knew he would not,” exclaimed my patron, with an air of exultation, for which I saw no cause. “Well, well, never mind, put down the ham and the wine; with those and the rice, I dare say, young gentleman, you will be able to make it out. I ought to apologise, but in fact it is all your own fault that there is not more; if I had fallen in with you earlier, we should have had a better dinner.”
I confess I was surprised, disappointed, and amused; but as matters stood, there was no use in complaining, and accordingly we fell to, neither of us wanting the best of all sauces—appetite.
I soon perceived that my promised patron had baited his trap with a fowl to catch a fool; but as we ate and drank, all care vanished, and, rogue as I suspected him to be, my long-tailed friend was a clever witty fellow, and, besides telling me a number of anecdotes, gave me some very good advice; amongst other things to be avoided, he cautioned me against numbers of people who in Venice lived only by duping the unwary. I thought this counsel came very ill from him. “Above all,” said he, “keep up your spirits, and recollect the Venetian proverb, ‘A hundred years of melancholy will not pay one farthing of debt.’”—Reminiscences of Michael Kelly.
Poets often compare life to the sea; and the truth is, that, however bright the surface may be, they are both of them, whenever analysis is used, salt water.
APOLOGUES AND FABLES,
IN PROSE AND VERSE, FROM THE GERMAN AND OTHER LANGUAGES.
(Translated for the Irish Penny Journal.)