"He`s cook to some prince."

"By his good lance," answered Gurth.---"These bags contain the ransom of four good horses, and four good suits of armour."

He walked on a few steps, but looking wistfully down the long vista of gas–lamps before him, and thinking how long it would take to reach the end of it and being besides in that kind of mood in which a man is most disposed to yield to his first impulse—and being, besides, strongly attracted to the hotel, in part by curiosity, and in part by some odd mixture of feelings which he would have been troubled to define—Nicholas turned back again, and walked into the coffee–room.