Venta del Castillo 



and cloak, and Harry more as a Christian. Some way, I 

 fancy, the fleas do not bite so much when one sleeps in 

 one's clothes. As our venta was what Major Pendennis's 

 man would have called " rayther a shy place," I went to 

 sleep with my revolver in my hand — by the way, I do 

 usually lay my little arsenal of pistols and dagger by me — 

 but this night, for greater security that it should not 

 be removed, I had kept it in my hand. A dangerous 

 bedfellow. 



Before my going to sleep, the family had come crouching 

 through our room to theirs, of which this was an ante- 

 chamber without a door. However, I had pinned up a quilt 

 with the forks of supper, and under this they had come, 

 stepping noiselessly, and gone to bed in the dark. They 

 did not seem over-respectable people, and perhaps this dark 

 and hushed procession had given my subsequent dreams a 

 turn ; for in the middle of the night I woke up suddenly, 

 feeling myself touched, grabbled for my revolver, which had 

 got lost among the bed-clothes and cloaks and manias, and 

 then in a sort of somnolent despair hit out wildly in the 

 dark, and pitched into Harry, who woke up, and after 

 mutual explanations, we went to sleep again. 



Next morning before daybreak I was up — (and ye shall 

 note, that when a man sleepeth in his clothes, getting up 

 becometh a simpler operation, for he hath but to arise and 

 shake himself and his toilet is accomplished, which avoid- 

 ance of complicities much encourageth early rising) — and, 

 after objurgating the drowsy host and shrill hostess for not 

 having a chocolate-pot, had to make it (we luckily carried 

 chocolate with us) with a pipkin and a wooden spoon, and 

 burnt my fingers with the hot splashes. Harry was up by 

 the time it was made, and we ate it before the venta 

 door. 



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