_Gilb._ (_smiling_) I can't say much for that, sir.

_Sir W._ (_aside_) Now I shall set him going. (_Aloud_) What, the inn here
is not like one of our English inns on the Bath road?

_Gilb._ (_suppressing a laugh_) Bath road! Bless you, sir, it's no
more like an inn on the Bath road, nor on any road, cross or by-road
whatsomdever, as ever I seed in England. No more like--no more like than
nothing at all, sir!

_Sir W._ What sort of a place is it, then?

_Gilb._ Why, sir, I'd be ashamed almost to tell you. Why, sir, I never seed
such a place to call an inn, in all my born days afore. First and foremost,
sir, there's the pig is in and out of the kitchen all day long, and next
the calf has what they call the run of the kitchen; so what with them brute
beasts, and the poultry that has no coop, and is always under one's feet,
or over one's head, the kitchen is no place for a Christian, even to eat
his bread and cheese in.

_Sir W._ Well, so much for the kitchen. But the parlour--they have a
parlour, I suppose?

_Gilb._ Yes, sir, they have a parlour as they may call it, if they think
proper, sir. But then again, an honest English farmer would be _afeard on_
his life to stay in it, on account of the ceiling just a coming down a' top
of his head. And if he should go up stairs, sir, why that's as bad again,
and worse; for the half of them there stairs is rotten, and ever so many
pulled down and burnt.