My beef will want
basting long ago; and if Dandy hathn't left his job, he'll be pretty
well roasted hisself by now."
Mr. Swipes went muttering up the walk, and was forced to cut two of the
finest cauliflowers intended for Cheeseman's adornment to-morrow. This
turned his heart very sour again, and he shook his head, growling in
self-commune: "You see if I don't do it, my young lady. You speaks again
me, behind my back, and I writes again you, before your face; though, in
course, I need not put my name to it."
CHAPTER XXXV
LOYAL, AYE LOYAL
One of the dinners at the Darling Arms, and perhaps the most brilliant
and exciting of the whole, because even the waiters understood the
subject, was the entertainment given in the month of December, A.D.
1803, not only by the officers of two regiments quartered for the time
near Stonnington, but also by all the leading people round about those
parts, in celebration of the great work done by His Majesty's 38-gun
frigate Leda. Several smaller dinners had been consumed already, by way
of practice, both for the cooks and the waiters and the chairman, and
Mr. John Prater, who always stood behind him, with a napkin in one hand
and a corkscrew in the other, and his heart in the middle, ready either
to assuage or stimulate. As for the guests, it was always found that no
practice had been required.
"But now, but now"--as Mr. Prater said, when his wife pretended to make
nothing of it, for no other purpose than to aggravate him, because she
thought that he was making too much money, in proportion to what he was
giving her--"now we shall see what Springhaven can do for the good of
the Country and the glory of herself.
Pages:
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327