Page:Owen Wister - Dragon of Wantley.djvu/36

30 the legend, such tale-bearer should be chained to a tree, and kept fat until the Dragon found him and ate him. So everybody obligingly kept the Baron's secret.

Sir Godfrey is just this day returned from France with some famous tuns of wine, and presents for Elaine and Mrs. Mistletoe. His humour is (or was, till Whelpdale, poor wretch! answered the bell) of the best possible. And now, this moment, he is being told by the luckless Buttons that the Dragon of Wantley has taken to drinking, as well as eating, what does not belong to him; has for the last three nights burst the big gates of the wine-cellar that open on the hillside the Manor stands upon; that a hogshead of the Baron's best Burgundy is going; and that two hogsheads of his choicest Malvoisie are gone!

One hundred and twenty-eight gallons in three nights' work! But I suppose a fire-breathing Dragon must be very thirsty.

There was a dead silence in the study overhead, and old Popham's calves were shaking loose as he waited.