'The good food! How are we to get it, Curdie?
That is the whole question.' 'I am thinking hard,' answered Curdie.

'The good food?
Let me see--let me see! Such servants as I saw below are sure to have the best of everything for themselves: I will go an see what I can find on their table.' 'The chancellor sleeps in the house, and he and the master of the king's horse always have their supper together in a room off the great hall, to the right as you go down the stairs,' said Irene.

'I would go with you, but I dare not leave my father.

Alas! He scarcely ever takes more than a mouthful.

I can't think how he lives! And the very thing he would like, and often asks for--a bit of bread--I can hardly ever get for him: Dr Kelman has forbidden it, and says it is nothing less than poison to him.' 'Bread at least he shall have,' said Curdie; 'and that, with the honest wine, will do as well as anything, I do believe.