Though, for that matter, I know some characters about town who actually
consider themselves injured and insulted if the dinner or the company
is not to their liking. There is Guttleton, who dines at home off a
shilling's-worth of beef from the cookshop, but if he is asked to dine
at a house where there are not pease at the end of May, or cucumbers in
March along with the turbot, thinks himself insulted by being invited.
'Good Ged!' says he, 'what the deuce do the Forkers mean by asking ME
to a family dinner? I can get mutton at home;' or 'What infernal
impertinence it is of the Spooners to get ENTREES from the pastrycook's,
and fancy that I am to be deceived with their stories about their French
cook!' Then, again, there is Jack Puddington--I saw that honest fellow
t'other day quite in a rage, because, as chance would have it, Sir
John Carver asked him to meet the very same party he had met at Colonel
Cramley's the day before, and he had not got up a new set of stories
to entertain them. Poor Dinner-giving Snobs! you don't know what small
thanks you get for all your pains and money! How we Dining-out Snobs
sneer at your cookery, and pooh-pooh your old hock, and are incredulous
about your four-and-six-penny champagne, and know that the side-dishes
of to-day are RECHAUFFES from the dinner of yesterday, and mark how
certain dishes are whisked off the table untasted, so that they may
figure at the banquet tomorrow. Whenever, for my part, I see the head
man particularly anxious to ESCAMOTER a fricandeau or a blanc-mange, I
always call out, and insist upon massacring it with a spoon. All this
sort of conduct makes one popular with the Dinner-giving Snob. One
friend of mine, I know, has made a prodigious sensation in good society,
by announcing apropos of certain dishes when offered to him, that he
never eats aspic except at Lord Tittup's, and that Lady Jimmy's CHEF is
the only man in London who knows how to dress--FILET EN SERPENTEAU--or
SUPREME DE VOLAILLE AUX TRUFFES.
CHAPTER XX--DINNER-GIVING SNOBS FURTHER CONSIDERED
If my friends would but follow the present prevailing fashion, I think
they ought to give me a testimonial for the paper on Dinner-giving
Snobs, which I am now writing. What do you say now to a handsome
comfortable dinner-service of plate (NOT including plates, for I hold
silver plates to be sheer wantonness, and would almost as soon think of
silver teacups), a couple of neat teapots, a coffeepot, trays, &c., with
a little inscription to my wife, Mrs. Snob; and a half-score of silver
tankards for the little Snoblings, to glitter on the homely table where
they partake of their quotidian mutton?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account