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- 3604
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3539
- text
- of collateral awe, hailed from the spot where Lord Verulam once abode a
bachelor--Gray's Inn.
The apartment was well up toward heaven; I know not how many strange
old stairs I climbed to get to it. But a good dinner, with famous
company, should be well earned. No doubt our host had his dining-room
so high with a view to secure the prior exercise necessary to the due
relishing and digesting of it.
The furniture was wonderfully unpretending, old, and snug. No new
shining mahogany, sticky with undried varnish; no uncomfortably
luxurious ottomans, and sofas too fine to use, vexed you in this sedate
apartment. It is a thing which every sensible American should learn
from every sensible Englishmen, that glare and glitter, gimcracks and
gewgaws, are not indispensable to domestic solacement. The American
Benedick snatches, down-town, a tough chop in a gilded show-box; the
English bachelor leisurely dines at home on that incomparable South
Down of his, off a plain deal board.
The ceiling of the room was low. Who wants to dine under the dome of
St. Peter's? High ceilings! If that is your demand, and the higher the
better, and you be so very tall, then go dine out with the topping
giraffe in the open air.
In good time the nine gentlemen sat down to nine covers, and soon were
fairly under way.
If I remember right, ox-tail soup inaugurated the affair. Of a rich
russet hue, its agreeable flavor dissipated my first confounding of its
main ingredient with teamster's gads and the rawhides of ushers. (By
way of interlude, we here drank a little claret.) Neptune's was the
next tribute rendered--turbot coming second; snow-white, flaky, and
just gelatinous enough, not too turtleish in its unctuousness. (At this
point we refreshed ourselves with a glass of sherry.) After these light
skirmishers had vanished, the heavy artillery of the feast marched
in, led by that well-known English generalissimo, roast beef. For
aids-de-camp we had a saddle of mutton, a fat turkey, a chicken-pie,
and endless other savory things; while for avant-couriers came nine
silver flagons of humming ale. This heavy ordnance having departed
on the track of the light skirmishers, a picked brigade of game-fowl
encamped upon the board, their camp-fires lit by the ruddiest of
decanters.
Tarts and puddings followed, with innumerable niceties; then cheese
and crackers. (By way of ceremony, simply, only to keep up good old
fashions, we here each drank a glass of good old port.)
The cloth was now removed; and like Blucher's army coming in at the
death on the field of Waterloo, in marched a fresh detachment of
bottles, dusty with their hurried march.
All these manoeuvrings of the forces were superintended by a surprising
old field marshal (I can not school myself to call him by the
inglorious name of waiter), with snowy hair and napkin, and a head like
Socrates. Amidst all the hilarity of the feast, intent on important
business, he disdained to smile. Venerable man!
I have above endeavored to give some slight schedule of the general
plan of operations. But any one knows that a good, general dinner is
a sort of pell-mell, indiscriminate affair, quite baffling to detail
in all particulars. Thus, I spoke of taking a glass of claret, and a
glass of sherry, and a glass of port, and a mug of ale--all at certain
specific periods and times. But those were merely the state bumpers,
so to speak. Innumerable impromptu glasses were drained between the
periods of those grand imposing ones.
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