Silenus, hogshead, wine-bottle, sponge that you are!
you excite my pity."
"How delightful it would be for us all if you both could have your
wish," interposed Scapin, in a conciliatory tone.
"Look, yonder by the roadside is a little grove, capitally situated for
a halting-place. We might stop there for a little, ransack the chariot
to find whatever fragments may yet remain in it of our last stock of
provisions, and gathering them all up take our breakfast, such as it may
be, comfortably sheltered from this cold north wind on the lee side of
the thicket there. The short halt will give the poor old horse a chance
to rest, and we meantime, while we are breakfasting, can discuss at our
leisure some expedients for supplying our immediate needs, and also talk
over our future plans and prospects--which latter, it seems to me, look
devilishly dark and discouraging."
"Your words are golden, friend Scapin," the pedant said, "let us by all
means gather up the crumbs that are left of former plenty, though they
will be but few and musty, I fear. There are still, however, two or
three bottles of wine remaining--the last of a goodly store--enough for
us each to have a glass. What a pity that the soil hereabouts is not of
that peculiar kind of clay upon which certain tribes of American savages
are said to subsist, when they have been unlucky in their hunting and
fishing, and have nothing better to eat.
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