"For wine, no," answered Philipson; "but could I see anything requiring such sauce, I have seldom seen better vinegar." This jest, though uttered in the most calm and composed manner, seemed to drive the innkeeper to fury. "Who are you," he exclaimed, "for a foreign pedlar, that ventures to quarrel with my wine, which has been approved of by so many princes, dukes, reigning dukes, graves, rhinegraves, counts, barons, and knights of the Empire, whose shoes you are altogether unworthy even to clean? Was it not of this wine that the Count Palatine of Nimmersatt drank six quarts before he ever rose from the blessed chair in which I now sit?" "I doubt it not, mine host," said Philipson; "nor should I think of scandalising the sobriety of your honourable guest, even if he had drunken twice the quantity." "Silence, thou malicious railer!" said the host; "and let instant apology be made to me, and the wine which you have calumniated, or I will instantly command the supper to be postponed till midnight." Here there was a general alarm among the guests, all abjuring any part in the censures of Philipson, and most of them proposing that John Mengs should avenge himself on the actual culprit by turning him instantly out of doors, rather than involve so many innocent and famished persons in the consequences of his guilt. The wine they pronounced excellent; some two or three even drank their glass out, to make their words good; and they all offered, if not with lives and fortunes, at least with hands and feet, to support the ban of the house against the contumacious Englishman. While petition and remonstrance were assailing John Mengs on every side, the friar, like a wise counsellor and a trusty friend, endeavoured to end the feud by advising Philipson to submit to the host's sovereignty. "Humble thyself, my son," he said; "bend the stubbornness of thy heart before the great lord of the spigot and butt. I speak for the sake of others as well as my own; for Heaven alone knows how much longer they or I can endure this extenuating fast!" "Worthy guests," said Philipson, "I am grieved to have offended our respected host, and am so far from objecting to the wine that I will pay for a double flagon of it, to be served all round to this honourable company--so, only, they do not ask me to share of it." These last words were spoken aside; but the Englishman could not fail to perceive, from the wry mouths of some of the party who were possessed of a nicer palate, that they were as much afraid as himself of a repetition of the acid potation.