Edmund Yates, in his "Reminiscences," describes "nice, cosy, little suppers," of which in his early youth he used to partake, at the house of his maternal grandfather, in Kentish Town. "He dined at two o'clock," observed the late proprietor of the _World_, "and had the most delightful suppers at nine; suppers of sprats, or kidneys, or tripe and onions; with foaming porter and hot grog afterwards." I cannot share the enthusiasm possessed by some people for SPRATS, as an article of diet. When very "full-blown," the little fish make an excellent fertiliser for Marshal Niel roses; but as "winter whitebait," or sardines they are hardly up to "Derby form." Sprats are not much encouraged at the fashionable hotels; and when tripe is brought to table, which is but rarely, that food is nearly always filleted, sprinkled with chopped parsley, and served with tomato sauce. This is the sort of supper which is provided in the "gilt-edged" _caravanserais_ of the metropolis, the following being a _verbatim_ copy of a bill of fare at the Hotel Cecil:-- SOUPER, 5s. Consommé Riche en tasses. Laitances Frites, Villeroy. Côte de Mouton aux Haricots Verts. Chaudfroid de Mauviettes. Strasbourg evisie. Salade. Biscuit Cecil. A lady-like repast this; and upon the whole, not dear. But roast loin of mutton hardly sounds tasty enough for a meal partaken of somewhere about the stroke of midnight. Still, such a supper is by no means calculated to "murder sleep." Upon the other hand it is a little difficult to credit the fact that the whole of the party invited by "My Lord Tomnoddy" to refresh themselves at the "Magpie and Stump," including the noble host himself, should have slumbered peacefully, with a noisy crowd in the street, after a supper which consisted of "Cold fowl and cigars, Pickled onions in jars, Welsh rabbits and kidneys, Rare work for the jaws." CHAPTER XVI SUPPER (_continued_) "To feed were best at home; From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it." Old supper-houses--The Early Closing Act--Evans's--Cremorne Gardens--The "Albion"--Parlour cookery--Kidneys fried in the fire-shovel--The true way to grill a bone--"Cannie Carle"--My lady's bower--Kidney dumplings--A Middleham supper--Steaks cut from a colt by brother to "Strafford" out of sister to "Bird on the Wing."