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- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:18.539Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 10186
- text
- Lamberts abreast.
“Look,” cried Borabolla, as landing we stepped toward the place. “Look
Media! look all. These gates, you here see, lashed back with osiers,
have been so lashed during my life-time; and just where they stand,
shall they rot; ay, they shall perish wide open.”
“But why have them at all?” inquired Media.
“Ah! there you have old Borabolla,” cried the other.
“No,” said Babbalanja, “a fence whose gate is ever kept open, seems
unnecessary, I grant; nevertheless, it gives a notable hint, otherwise
not so aptly conveyed; for is not the open gate the sign of the open
heart?”
“Right, right,” cried Borabolla; “so enter both, cousin Media;” and
with one hand smiting his chest, with the other he waved us on.
But if the stockade seemed all open gate, the structure within seemed
only a roof; for nothing but a slender pillar here and there, supported
it.
“This is my mode of building,” said Borabolla; “I will have no outside
to my palaces. Walls are superfluous. And to a high-minded guest, the
entering a narrow doorway is like passing under a yoke; every time he
goes in, or comes out, it reminds him, that he is being entertained at
the cost of another. So storm in all round.”
Within, was one wide field-bed; where reclining, we looked up to
endless rows of brown calabashes, and trenchers suspended along the
rafters; promissory of ample cheer as regiments of old hams in a
baronial refectory.
They were replenished with both meat and drink; the trenchers readily
accessible by means of cords; but the gourds containing arrack,
suspended neck downward, were within easy reach where they swung.
Seeing all these indications of hard roystering; like a cautious young
bridegroom at his own marriage merry-making, Taji stood on his guard.
And when Borabolla urged him to empty a gourd or two, by way of making
room in him for the incidental repast about to be served, Taji civilly
declined; not wishing to cumber the floor, before the cloth was laid.
Jarl, however, yielding to importunity, and unmindful of the unities of
time and place, went freely about, from gourd to gourd, concocting in
him a punch. At which, Samoa expressed much surprise, that he should be
so unobservant as not to know, that in Mardi, guests might be pressed
to demean themselves, without its being expected that so they would do.
A true toss-pot himself, he bode his time.
The second lunch over, Borabolla placed both hands to the ground, and
giving the sigh of the fat man, after three vigorous efforts, succeeded
in gaining his pins; which pins of his, were but small for his body;
insomuch that they hugely staggered about, under the fine old load they
carried.
The specific object of his thus striving after an erect posture, was to
put himself in motion, and conduct us to his fish-ponds, famous
throughout the Archipelago as the hobby of the king of Mondoldo.
Furthermore, as the great repast of the day, yet to take place, was to
be a grand piscatory one, our host was all anxiety, that we should have
a glimpse of our fish, while yet alive and hearty.
We were alarmed at perceiving, that certain servitors were preparing to
accompany us with trenchers of edibles. It begat the notion, that our
trip to the fish-ponds was to prove a long journey. But they were not
three hundred yards distant; though Borabolla being a veteran traveler,
never stirred from his abode without his battalion of butlers.
- title
- Chunk 2