He shook his fingers in the air; pointed with the cudgel he carried
under his arm now to the gloom behind us, now to the homely galaxy
before us, and gabbled on so fast and so earnestly that I began to
suppose he was a little crazed.
One word, however, I caught at last from all this jargon, and that
often repeated with a little bow to me, and an uneasy smile on his
white face--"Mishrush, Mishrush!" But whether by this he meant to
convey to me his habitual mood, or his own name, I did not learn till
afterwards. I stopped in the heavy road and raised my hand.
"An inn," I cried in his ear, "I want lodging, supper--a tavern, an
inn!" as if addressing a child or a natural.
He began gesticulating again, evidently vain of having fully
understood me. Indeed, he twisted his little head upon his shoulders
to observe Rosinante gauntly labouring on. "'Ame!--'ame!" he cried
with a great effort.
I nodded.
"Ah!" he cried piteously.
He led me, after a few minutes' journey, into the cobbled yard of a
bright-painted inn, on whose signboard a rising sun glimmered faintly
gold, and these letters standing close above it--"The World's End.
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