THE LORD MALTWORM'S FIRST TALE
WHEN WE had sufficiently nourished our internal juices by dining I let my three worshipful jokers know that there was a spacious shadow ready for them on the lawn, where I had caused chairs to be set as easy as I had, for a man who has made a good dinner needs gentle treatment and a little luxury of comfort, so that he may meditate on nothing, and stroke himself down without let or hindrance. Some people cannot sit still and do nothing even after dinner, they must still be fretting and fuming, still reforming, still settling matters right. O miserable race of men; tell me how comes it that there is any wrong or crookedness upon the earth, for since your great Originall began to mend our fortunes, you, his apes, have never ceased to botch, to rip, to tear, to drive in nails and pull them out, to loosen the tight and to tighten the loose, and all the while to go solemnly to work, to use long words and to drink cold water. But we four Silurians were not of this Reforming and Beautifying company, and were able to sit very still in the shade, watching the sunlight play upon the trees, and the filmy clouds floating across the sky, and listening to the ripple of the brook as it sped over the stones toward Caerleon. Phil Ambrose the Spigot Clerk who had in the morning told the rare tale of Sir
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