The Inn Is a Friend, and the Food Is of the Smallest.

The people of the inn, in nine cases out of ten, show themselves friendly and consider it. As soon as you cross the doors you cease to be a stranger. In these head-jins the traveler is expected to eat with his own knife. The food is sometimes spare. Hard fish and omelet have been my portion more than once. Although these peasantry are rude and forbidding on the highway, they show a tincture of kind breeding when you share their hearth. And the visit of a fat sow, grouting under the table and rubbing against your legs, is no impossible accompaniment to dinner.