On the whole, looking over the multiform bill of fare, it presented a healthy and not discreditable array. If the service was not as faultless as a Sybarite luxury of taste might desire, or if absent, might criticise, it was not destitute of refinement, and while consciously susceptible of improvement, was as consciously guiltless of many of the sins so wittily summarized against it by Sidney Smith. There was, doubtless, veal too young for the goggle-eyed epicure, who had haunted the _Trois Freres Provencaux_, in Paris, for twoscores of years, and the dishonest debaucheries of European courts, with vicious diligence; there was manifestly beef too much done for the dyspeptically over-fed stomach, too critical to enjoy, too weak to digest, anything hearty; there was pork here and there in the place of pheasants’ hearts and nightingales’ tongues; there were plump joints, which stood where foreign-fed stomachs might have preferred to find some rare, unpronounceable dish, some New-found-land estray, smothered in the sudden tides of French sauces, and, there were, also certain culinary anachronisms that had, by an uncalculating liberality—so abundant in America—piled themselves thoughtlessly on the great half-shell,—a blue-pouted oyster, for example, in a month destitute of an r and of ar-oma, or sweetmeats and sweetbreads for breakfast. Still, there was a very lavish spread, out of which a reasonable foreigner or an un-Europeanized native might pick a good deal, before he churlishly finished his meal on vinegar, or pettishly gave himself up to sugared water. CHAPTER XV. THE BEGINNING OF STRIFE; OR, THE TAYLOR AND FILLMORE WEBBING. 1849–1853. The Young Polka Dancer becomes Floor Manager.—The large Apples of Discord emptied on the Floor of Congress.—What they were; and the Pacific Trees from which they fell.—Of California, New Mexico, and Deseret.—General Taylor’s Death, and Mr. Fillmore’s suave Manners and smooth Appeals.—Wendell Phillips and J. Davis.—Political Nurses and Anodynes.—Kossuth and his Short Catechism.—How it did not take, and how he did.—A large Piece of Japanned Ware.—Deaths of Clay and Webster.—The Autumn Glory which they shed on a Stormy Season. The young man who, in Texas and Mexico, had got through the polka to the delight of the spectators, and the discontent of the floor committee, became himself the general manager for the coming season; Millard Fillmore being first assistant.