The pedant, who was an accomplished carver, officiated in that capacity
on this auspicious occasion; begging the company, as he did so, to
be kind enough to excuse the unavoidable absence, which he deeply
regretted, of the slices of Seville oranges that should have formed a
part of the dish--being an obligatory accessory of roast goose--and they
with charming courtesy smilingly expressed their willingness to overlook
for this once such a culinary solecism.
"Now," said Herode, when nothing remained of the goose but its
well-picked bones, "we must try to decide upon what is best to be done.
Only three or four pistoles are left in the exchequer, and my office as
treasurer bids fair to become a sinecure. We have been so unfortunate as
to lose two valuable members of the troupe, Zerbine and poor Matamore,
rendering many of our best plays impossible for us, and at any rate we
cannot give dramatic representations that would bring in much money here
in the fields, where our audience would be mainly composed of crows,
jackdaws, and magpies--who could scarcely be expected to pay us very
liberally for our entertainment. With that poor, miserable, old horse
there, slowly dying between the shafts of our chariot, hardly able
to drag one foot after another, we cannot reasonably expect to reach
Poitiers in less than two days--if we do then--and our situation is an
unpleasantly tragic one, for we run the risk of being frozen or starved
to death by the wayside; fat geese, already roasted, do not emerge from
every thicket you know.
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