Two or three haggard, ragged
drawers, ran to and fro, whose looks, like those of owls, seemed only
adapted for midnight, when other creatures sleep, and who by day
seemed bleared, stupid, and only half awake. Guided by one of these
blinking Ganymedes, they entered a room, where the feeble rays of the
sun were almost wholly eclipsed by volumes of tobacco-smoke, rolled
from the tubes of the company, while out of the cloudy sanctuary arose
the old chant of--
"Old Sir Simon the King,
And old Sir Simon the King,
With his malmsey nose,
And his ale-dropped hose,
And sing hey ding-a-ding-ding."
Duke Hildebrod, who himself condescended to chant this ditty to his
loving subjects, was a monstrously fat old man, with only one eye; and
a nose which bore evidence to the frequency, strength, and depth of
his potations. He wore a murrey-coloured plush jerkin, stained with
the overflowings of the tankard, and much the worse for wear, and
unbuttoned at bottom for the ease of his enormous paunch. Behind him
lay a favourite bull-dog, whose round head and single black glancing
eye, as well as the creature's great corpulence, gave it a burlesque
resemblance to its master.
The well-beloved counsellors who surrounded the ducal throne, incensed
it with tobacco, pledged its occupier in thick clammy ale, and echoed
back his choral songs, were Satraps worthy of such a Soldan.
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