“This way, my dear Media!—­this seat at my left—­Noble Taji!—­my right.  Babbalanja!—­Mohi—­where you are.  But where’s pretty Yoomy?—­ Gone to meditate in the moonlight? ah!—­Very good.  Let the banquet begin.  A blast there!”

And charge all did.

The venison, wild boar’s meat, and buffalo-humps, were extraordinary; the wine, of rare vintages, like bottled lightning; and the first course, a brilliant affair, went off like a rocket.

But as yet, Babbalanja joined not in the revels.  His mood was on him; and apart he sat; silently eyeing the banquet; and ever and anon muttering,—­“Fogle-foggle, fugle-fi.—­”

The first fury of the feast over, said King Media, pouring out from a heavy flagon into his goblet, “Abrazza, these suppers are wondrous fine things.”

“Ay, my dear lord, much better than dinners.”

“So they are, so they are.  The dinner-hour is the summer of the day:  full of sunshine, I grant; but not like the mellow autumn of supper.  A dinner, you know, may go off rather stiffly; but invariably suppers are jovial.  At dinners, ’tis not till you take in sail, furl the cloth, bow the lady-passengers out, and make all snug; ’tis not till then, that one begins to ride out the gale with complacency.  But at these suppers—­Good Oro! your cup is empty, my dear demi-god!—­But at these suppers, I say, all is snug and ship-shape before you begin; and when you begin, you waive the beginning, and begin in the middle.  And as for the cloth,—­but tell us, Braid-Beard, what that old king of Franko, Ludwig the Fat, said of that matter.  The cloth for suppers, you know.  It’s down in your chronicles.”

“My lord,”—­wiping his beard,—­“Old Ludwig was of opinion, that at suppers the cloth was superfluous, unless on the back of some jolly good friar.  Said he, ’For one, I prefer sitting right down to the unrobed table.’”

“High and royal authority, that of Ludwig the Fat,” said Babbalanja, “far higher than the authority of Ludwig the Great:—­the one, only great by courtesy; the other, fat beyond a peradventure.  But they are equally famous; and in their graves, both on a par.  For after devouring many a fair province, and grinding the poor of his realm, Ludwig the Great has long since, himself, been devoured by very small worms, and ground into very fine dust.  And after stripping many a venison rib, Ludwig the Fat has had his own polished and bleached in the Valley of Death; yea, and his cranium chased with corrodings, like the carved flagon once held to its jaws.”

“My lord! my lord!”—­cried Abrazza to Media—­“this ghastly devil of yours grins worse than a skull.  I feel the worms crawling over me!—­By Oro we must eject him!”

“No, no, my lord.  Let him sit there, as of old the Death’s-head graced the feasts of the Pharaohs—­let him sit—­let him sit—­for Death but imparts a flavor to Life—­Go on:  wag your tongue without fear, Azzageddi!—­But come, Braid-Beard! let’s hear more of the Ludwigs.”