Portman,
right alongside Mr. Hodges. And Crossbin, you are down there
somewhere"; the spreading of napkins and squaring of everybody's
elbow as each man drops into his seat.
Neither will the reader be told of the various dishes or their
garnishings. These pages have so far been filled with little else
beside eating and drinking, and with reason, too, for have not all
the great things in life been begun over some tea-table, carried
on at a luncheon, and completed between the soup and the cordials?
Kings, diplomats and statesmen have long since agreed that for
baiting a trap there is nothing like a soup, an entree and a
roast, the whole moistened by a flagon of honest wine. The bait
varies when the financier or promoter sets out to catch a
capitalist, just as it does when one sets out to catch a mouse,
and yet the two mammals are much alike--timid, one foot at a time,
nosing about to find out if any of his friends have had a nibble;
scared at the least disturbing echo--then the fat, toothsome
cheese looms up (Breen's Madeira this time), and in they go.
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