"Blood!" answered the knight, "I think myself the more obliged to you for your kind opinion, than if you was my countryman in good earnest. For there be abundance of we English--no offence, Sir Giles--that seem to be ashamed of their own nation, and leave their homes to come and spend their fortunes abroad, among a parcel of--you understand me, sir--a word to the wise, as the saying is."--Here he was interrupted by an article of the second course, that seemed to give him great disturbance. This was a roasted leveret, very strong of the fumet, which happened to be placed directly under his nose. His sense of smelling was no sooner encountered by the effluvia of this delicious fare, than he started up from table, exclaiming, "Odd's my liver! here's a piece of carrion, that I would not offer to e'er a hound in my kennel; 'tis enough to make any Christian vomit both gut and gall"; and indeed by the wry faces he made while he ran to the door, his stomach seemed ready to justify this last assertion. The abbe, who concluded, from these symptoms of disgust, that the leveret was not sufficiently stale, began to exhibit marks of discontent, and desired that it might be brought to the other end of the table for his examination. He accordingly hung over it with the most greedy appetite, feasting his nostrils with the steams of animal putrefaction; and at length declared that the morceau was passable, though he owned it would have been highly perfect, had it been kept another week. Nevertheless, mouths were not wanting to discuss it, insipid as it was; for in three minutes there was not a vestige to be seen of that which had offended the organs of Sir Stentor, who now resumed his place, and did justice to the dessert. But what he seemed to relish better than any other part of the entertainment, was the conversation of our adventurer, whom, after dinner, he begged to have the honour of treating with a dish of coffee, to the seeming mortification of his brother knight, over which Fathom exulted in his own heart.