Excerpt: ...great mistake to provide too well for your guests. There is something heroic in eating your mutton-chop, or your leg of a turkey, among jolly fellows; there is a kind of reflective flattering about it that tells you you have been invited for your drollery, and not for your digestion; and that your jokes and not your flattery have been your recommendation. Lord bless you! I 've laughed more over red-herrings and poteen than I ever expect to do again over turtle and toquay. 'My guests were, to do them justice, a ...
Read More
Excerpt: ...great mistake to provide too well for your guests. There is something heroic in eating your mutton-chop, or your leg of a turkey, among jolly fellows; there is a kind of reflective flattering about it that tells you you have been invited for your drollery, and not for your digestion; and that your jokes and not your flattery have been your recommendation. Lord bless you! I 've laughed more over red-herrings and poteen than I ever expect to do again over turtle and toquay. 'My guests were, to do them justice, a good illustration of my theory. A pleasanter and a merrier party never sat down together. We had good songs, good stories, plenty of laughing, and plenty of drink; until at last poor Darby became so overpowered, by the fumes of the hot water I suppose, that he was obliged to be carried up to bed, and so we were compelled to boil the kettle in the parlour. This, I think, precipitated matters; for, by some mistake, they put punch into it instead of water, and the more you tried to weaken the liquor, it was only the more tipsy you were getting. 'About two o'clock, five of the party were under the table, three more were nodding backwards and forwards like insane pendulums, and the rest were mighty noisy, and now and then rather disposed to be quarrelsome. '"Bob," said Lambert to me, in a whisper, "if it's the same thing to you, I'll slip away and get into bed." '"Of course, if you won't take anything more. Just make yourself at home; and as you don't know the way here, follow me." '"I 'm afraid," said he, "I 'd not find my way alone." '"I think," said I, "it's very likely. But come along!" 'I walked upstairs before him; but instead of turning to the left, I went the other way, till I came to the door of the large room that I have told you already was over the big drawing-room. Just as I put my hand on the lock, I contrived to blow out the candle, as if it was the wind. '"What a draught there is here," said I; "but just step in, and I'll go for a...
Read Less