For myself, I honoured him with a long and grave look. Since that distant evening in my youth I have met with many chances and adventures in my travels. I have fallen in with persons of all kinds--the virtuous, the wicked, and those who are neither one nor the other. I have broken bread with princes, philosophers, rogues, slaves, and men of the sword--men of all nations and of every variety of fortune-yet I believe never one so remarkable as he who now kept the chimney of this wretched venta upon a three-legged stool. The length of his limbs was extraordinary; his shoulders were those of a giant; and even in his present careless and recumbent attitude he wore an uncommonly sinister and formidable look. His dress at one time would scarcely have come amiss to a prince, yet now it was barely redeemed from that of a beggar. The original colour of his doublet, which hung in tatters, was an orange tawny, but it was now so soiled and rent that it could have stood for any hue one cared to name. His cloak, which hung upon the wall, was of a bright blue camlet, and was but little superior to the condition of his doublet. Purple silk had once formed the substance of his hose, but now the better part of it was cloth, having suffered many patchings with that material. Added to such conspicuous marks of indigence, his long yellow riding boots were split in pieces, one even revealed the toe of a worsted stocking; whilst his scabbard was in such case as it sprawled on the ground beside his leg that the naked point was visible. When I came near and fell to regard him the better, he did me the honour to lift his left eye off the cooking-pot. He proceeded to stare at me in a manner of the most lazy indifference, and yet of the greatest insolence imaginable. Then, without saying a word, he yawned in my face and turned the whole of his attention again to the kettle. Such a piece of sauciness made me feel angry. Had I been a dog I could not have been met with less civility. My hand went again to the hilt of my sword as I took a closer view of his visage. It was as red as borracho, shining with cunning and the love of the cup. But it was the eye he had fixed upon me that gave me the most concern. The poor innkeeper was right when he spoke of his eye. It was as rude as a tiger’s, and animated with such a hungry look that it might have belonged to a dragon who desired to know what sort of meal stood before him.