Exchanging significant looks with each other, the two giants thought it best to leave him to himself, and assiduously addressed themselves to their own meal. By way of setting him a good example, they speedily cleared the chine to the bone. The gurnet was next despatched; and a considerable inroad made into the lumber pie,—three of its turrets having already disappeared,—when, as if roused from a trance, Magog suddenly seized the marrow pudding, and devoured it in a trice. He then applied himself to the nine-hooped pot, and taking a long deep draught, appeared exceedingly relieved.
But his calmness was of short duration. The fit almost instantly returned with fresh violence. Without giving the slightest intimation of his intention, he plucked his cap from his brow, and flung it at Xit, who chanced at the moment to be perched upon a stool stirring a great pan of sack posset, set upon a chafing-dish to warm, with such force as to precipitate him over head and ears into the liquid, which, fortunately, was neither hot enough to scald him, nor deep enough to drown him. When he reappeared, the mannikin uttered a shrill scream of rage and terror; and Og, who could not help laughing at his comical appearance, hastened to his assistance, and extricated him from his unpleasant situation.
By the aid of a napkin, Xit was speedily restored to a state of tolerable cleanliness, and though his habiliments were not a little damaged by the viscous fluid in which they had been immersed, he appeared to have suffered more in temper than in any other way from the accident. While Og was rubbing him dry,—perhaps with no very gentle hand,—he screamed and cried like a peevish infant undergoing the process of ablution; and he was no sooner set free, than darting to the spot where Magog’s cap had fallen, he picked it up, and dipping it in the sack-posset, hurled it in its owners face. Delighted with this retaliation, he crowed and swaggered about the room, and stamping fiercely upon the ground, tried to draw his sword; but this he found impossible, it being fast glued to the scabbard. Magog, however, paid no sort of attention to his antics, but having wiped his face with the end of the table-cloth, and wrung his bonnet, marched deliberately out of the room. His brothers glanced at each other in surprise, and were hesitating whether to follow, when they were relieved from further anxiety on this score by Xit, who hurried after him. They then very quietly returned to the repast, and trusting all would come right, contented themselves with such interjectional remarks as did not interfere with the process of mastication. In this way they continued, until the return of Xit, who, as he entered the room, exclaimed, with a half-merry, half-mischievous expression of countenance, “I have found it out—I have found it out.”