The Irishman shrugged, watching the bay. "Canada, the way I hear, is a handful of frightened papists in a wilderness. As for the Sun King Louis, I saw him once. Six years past, before the war was renewed--the Treaty of Ryswick accomplished nothing, you'll understand, a patching-up, a pause for the licking of wounds, and so you may say 'tis all one war, and I happening to be in Paris when his solar bloody Majesty made a gracious appearance unto the multitude, I beheld a trembling dried-up monkey in velvet. That minikin shivering old man, that homunculus, that thing, master of Europe and the West? Don't they tell he's not even master of his own bowels? Faith, when he dies his empire will be crumbling like a child's mud castle in the rain as others have done before, and England would do better to wait for it, but not so, the armies and navies must be employed and good men die to no purpose, anyway that's the opinion of one mad Irishman," said Shawn, and smiled with sudden brilliance. A twist of the knife gave the mermaid a pretty navel; he held her away for admiration. "O the anatomical enigmas of the mermaid!--hey? I wonder could there be word of her in Physiologus?... Will you be in haste to return home?" "No great haste." But with the words, Ben realized he ought to be. The sun was behind the rooftops, the wind sharp easterly. "Would you dine with me, Ben?--that is," he asked again, "may I call you so and no offense?" "Of course, Mr. Shawn." "That's kind. I dread a lonely evening, now that's no lie." Ben was startled, having meant only to agree to the use of his first name, for which Mr. Shawn hardly needed permission. Well--might not Uncle John suppose he had been invited to dine at the Jenks house, and so not be troubled? It would mean walking that ugly mile of the Roxbury road after dark, but there would be a moon later, if the deepening clouds did not interfere. Mr. Shawn was already speaking of a tavern on Ship Street. "The Lion they call it, nothing so fine, but I fear, Beneen, I am not dressed for a finer place. Hi!--that wind's pure easterly, and will that be meaning rain by morning in this part of the world?" "Sometimes," Ben said, and discovered he was cold. "Let us go...." The Lion tavern consisted of one long narrow room, filled with the reek of malt, sweat, clay pipes, rummy breath, wood smoke. A line of small tables on one side was divided by a poorly drawing fireplace; on the other side of the room a bar ran from the kitchen door to a grimy window, and the smeary glass denied all memory of daylight. Pine knots sputtered above the fireplace; a lantern on the bar added more smoke but no light worth the name. Shawn chose a table within spitting distance of the hearth, ignoring two shabby customers who were exchanging an aimless rambling conversation at the bar.