His irritation was
but momentary, for he laid these weapons aside as hastily as he had
assumed them, and said as he did so:
'You know, Gog, old friend, that when we animate these shapes which
the Londoners of old assigned (and not unworthily) to the guardian
genii of their city, we are susceptible of some of the sensations
which belong to human kind. Thus when I taste wine, I feel blows;
when I relish the one, I disrelish the other. Therefore, Gog, the
more especially as your arm is none of the lightest, keep your good
staff by your side, else we may chance to differ. Peace be between
us!'
'Amen!' said the other, leaning his staff in the window-corner.
'Why did you laugh just now?'
'To think,' replied the Giant Magog, laying his hand upon the cask,
'of him who owned this wine, and kept it in a cellar hoarded from
the light of day, for thirty years, - "till it should be fit to
drink," quoth he. He was twoscore and ten years old when he buried
it beneath his house, and yet never thought that he might be
scarcely "fit to drink" when the wine became so. I wonder it never
occurred to him to make himself unfit to be eaten.
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