100
IVANHOE.
CHAPTER VII.
To buy his favour I extend this friendship:
If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;
And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.
Merchant of Venice.
As the Palmer, lighted by a domestic with a
torch, past through the intricate combination of
apartments of this large and irregular mansion,
the cup-bearer coming behind him whispered in
his ear, that if he had no objection to a cup of
good mead in his apartment, there were many
domestics in that family who would gladly hear
the news he had brought from the Holy Land,
and particularly that which concerned the Knight
of Ivanhoe. Wamba presently appeared to urge
the same request, observing that a cup after midnight was worth three after curfew. Without
disputing a maxim urged by such grave autho-