A huge man, about seven feet high, was working with a heap of mortar and some big stones, repairing a loose part of the wall. As they drew near he turned and saw them; then he smacked his hands together to knock the mortar off and rubbed them in his hair and waited for them with a friendly but weak-looking smile. He had a great silly face and coarse hair and whiskers like bits of a cheap goatskin rug. His dress was the usual shabby dress of ogres in books. It is perhaps slightly unfair to call him an ogre, for as Gorbo had said, he was reformed. Not a child had passed his lips for years, and his diet was now cabbage, turnip-tops, cucumbers, little sour apples and thin stuff like that.
“Aha!” he said as they came up, “you are all heartily welcome. It is long since I had any nice visitors. How are you, my little maid? And you, my little man? And you also, my dear Snerg? Let me see, have I had the pleasure of meeting you before?” He shook hands with them in a very friendly way.
“I don’t think so,” replied Gorbo. “You see,” he added delicately, “I was quite a boy when they—I mean when you—well, when you changed your address.”
“Exactly,” said Golithos, with a conscious blush. “Well, come inside and make yourselves at home.”
There seemed nothing for it but to go on through his door, though all Gorbo wanted was to ask the way back across the river, not to make morning calls. When they were inside Golithos slammed the heavy door and locked it.
“I get so nervous if I leave it open,” he explained. “But come in and I’ll have a meal ready for you. You must be tired and hungry after your long journey from wherever you have come.”
“Look here,” said Gorbo, “we don’t want to trouble you too much. All we want to know is how to get back across the river.”
“To get back across the river,” replied Golithos, bending down and placing a hand affectionately on his shoulder, “is easier than you think. Much easier. In fact I think I am right in saying that however easy you think it is it will prove to be easier still.”
“Well, I’m glad of that,” said Gorbo.
“Naturally you would be. But come inside and make yourselves at home.”
“Thanks, but I should really like to know the way.”
“The way?” Golithos looked a bit puzzled.
“Yes, the way across the river of course.”
“Oh, yes, of course. What am I thinking of? Well, it’s perfectly easy. All you have to do is to—but one thing at a time. Come inside and make yourselves at home.”
He led the way up some steep steps to a door in the wall of the tower and into a large round room which took the whole of one story. It was big enough, but the most comfortless room possible. At one side was a great four-foot post bedstead, and in the middle was a big heavy table and one big heavy chair. And that was all the furniture, unless you count an accumulation of mixed litter—old clothes and gardening tools and pots and pans and sacks and barrels and so forth scattered on the floor. Some wooden steps led to a trap-door in the ceiling and in the stone floor was another trap-door, with a big iron ring to lift it by, which led apparently to a cellar. There was only one window, with little round panes of dull green glass.
“This is my kitchen-dining room,” he said with a look of pride. “I sleep here too—that structure over there is my bed—so it is a bedroom as well. Please take chairs—I mean, one of you take the chair and the others sit on the floor. But whatever you do, make yourselves at home.”
“Thanks,” said Gorbo. “But what about the way across the river?”
“The river?” Golithos did not seem to grasp his meaning.
“Yes, the river outside. All that wet stuff over there. We want to get back.”
“Undoubtedly. Well, you needn’t worry about that, because it’s a very simple matter. I’ll show you how it can be done in the easiest way. But first let’s see about dinner.” He picked up a pan and a knife and rushed blunderingly down the steps.
“I’ve heard it said that he’s getting very slow since he reformed,” said Gorbo after a minute’s thinking, “but he’s worse than I expected. Somehow or other he makes me feel that I want to contradict him. And I’m not like that usually.”
“But he’s going to give us something to eat,” Joe observed.
“Yes, Joe. But I don’t think it will be very strengthening. That’s the worst of reformed people. Here he comes.”
Golithos came in like a mighty bumble bee, bumping against things and getting his feet entangled with things on the floor and dropping vegetables about and stooping to pick them up and dropping others as he did so. “I’m going to give you the feed of your lives,” he said, chopping up lettuce and smiling in his feeble way. “I always think there’s nothing so appetizing as fine fresh lettuce and raw onions, especially if they have lots of salt.”