Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/31

Rh to-day; I shall be more at liberty another day, and we will have this party: finish shaving me, and hasten to return, for perhaps your friends are already arrived.' 'Sir,' replied he, 'do not refuse me the favour I ask of you. Come and amuse yourself with the good company I shall have; if you had once been with such people, you would have been so pleased with them that you would give up your friends for them.' 'Say no more about it,' said I; 'I cannot be present at your feast.'

"I gained nothing by gentleness. 'Since you will not come with me,' replied the barber, 'you must allow me then to accompany you. I will go home with the provisions you have given me; my friends shall eat of them if they like, and I will return immediately. I cannot commit such an incivility as to suffer you to go alone—you deserve this piece of complaisance on my part.' 'Good Heaven,' exclaimed I, on hearing this, 'am I then condemned to bear this whole day so tormenting a creature! In the name of the great God,' said I to him, 'finish your tiresome speeches; go to your friends, eat and drink, and entertain yourselves, and leave me at liberty to go to mine. I will go alone, and do not want any one to accompany me; and indeed if you must know the truth, the place where I am going is not one in which you can be received—I only can be admitted.' 'You are joking, sir,' replied he; 'if your friends have invited you to an entertainment, what reason can prevent me from accompanying you? You will give them great pleasure, I am sure, by taking with you a man like me, who has the art of entertaining a company and making them merry. Say what you will, sir, I am resolved to go in spite of you.'