The walls were hung with wired cases, apparently containing books.

There was a table and two or three chairs; but the principal article of furniture was a long sofa, extending from the door by which we entered to the farther end of the apartment.
Seating himself upon the sofa, my new acquaintance motioned to me to sit beside him, and then, looking me full in the face, repeated his former inquiry, "In the name of all that is wonderful, how came you to know aught of my language ?" "There is nothing wonderful in that," said I; "we are at the commencement of a philological age, every one studies languages; that is, every one who is fit for nothing else; philology being the last resource of dulness and ennui, I have got a little in advance of the throng, by mastering the Armenian alphabet; but I foresee the time when every unmarriageable miss, and desperate blockhead, will likewise have acquired the letters of Mesroub, and will know the term for bread, in Armenian, and perhaps that for wine." "Kini," said my companion; and that and the other word put me in mind of the duties of hospitality.

"Will you eat bread and drink wine with me ?" "Willingly," said I.

Whereupon my companion, unlocking a closet, produced, on a silver salver, a loaf of bread, with a silver-handled knife, and wine in a silver flask, with cups of the same metal.

"I hope you like my fare," said he, after we had both eaten and drunk.
"I like your bread," said I, "for it is stale; I like not your wine, it is sweet, and I hate sweet wine." "It is wine of Cyprus," said my entertainer; and when I found that it was wine of Cyprus, I tasted it again, and the second taste pleased me much better than the first, notwithstanding that I still thought it somewhat sweet.