No one is ever allowed to shoot a dish sitting if a servant can see it. How pleasant it would be if we were watched in all the affairs of life as we are in eating! Monsieur, we may observe, had completely superseded the Bumbler, just as a colonel supersedes a captain on coming up. “Oi am Colonel Crushington of the Royal Plungers,” proclaims the Colonel, stretching himself to his utmost altitude. “And I am Captain Succumber, of the Sugar-Candy Hussars,” bows the Captain with the utmost humility; whereupon the Captain is snuffed out, and the Colonel reigns in his stead. “I am Monsieur Jean Rougier, valet-de-chambre to me lor Pringle, and I sail take in de potage,—de soup,” observed Rougier, coming down stairs in his first-class clothes, and pushing the now yellow-legged Bumbler aside. 141m _Original Size_ And these hobble-de-hoys never being favourites with the fair, the maids saw him reduced without remorse. So the dinner got set upon the table without a fight and though Monsieur allowed the Bumbler to announce it in the drawing-room, it was only that he might take a suck of the sherry while he was away. But he was standing as bolt upright as a serjeant-major on parade when “me lor” entered the dining-room with Mrs. Yammerton on his arm, followed by the Graces, the Major having stayed behind to blow out the composites. They were soon settled in their places, grace said, and the assault commenced. The Major was rather behind Imperial John in magnificence, for John had got his plate in his drawing-room, while the Major still adhered to the good old-fashioned blue and red, and gold and green crockery ware of his youth. Not but that both Mamma and the young ladies had often represented to him the absolute necessity of having plate, but the Major could never fall in with it at his price—that of German silver, or Britannia metal perhaps. We dare say Fine Billy would never have noticed the deficiency, if the Major had not drawn attention to it by apologising for its absence, and fearing he would not be able to eat his dinner without; though we dare say, if the truth were known our readers—our male readers at least—will agree with us, that a good, hot well-washed china dish is a great deal better than a dull, lukewarm, hand-rubbed silver one. It’s the “wittles” people look to, not the ware.