“I could not help coming at once to thank you, Mr. Onslow, for your polite note, and say how gratified I feel at making your acquaintance. Maynard often spoke of you to me; and I confess I was twenty times a day tempted to introduce myself.” “Maynard Sir Horace Maynard!” cried Onslow, with a slight flush, half pleasure, half surprise, for the baronet was the leader of the set George belonged to, a man of great fortune, ancient family, the most successful on the English Turf, and the envy of every young fellow about town. “Do you know Maynard?” “Oh, very well indeed,” lisped Jekyl; “and like him much.” Onslow could not help a stare at the man who, with perfect coolness and such an air of patronage, professed his opinion of the most distinguished fashionable of the day. “He has a very pretty taste in equipage,” continued Jekyl, “but never could attain to the slightest knowledge of a dinner.” Onslow was thunderstruck. Maynard, whose entertainments were the triumph of the Clarendon, thus criticised by the man he had seen supping like a mouse on a morsel of mouldy cheese! “Talking of dinners, by the way,” said Jekyl, “what became of Merewater?” “Lord Merewater? he was in waiting when we left England.” “A very tidy cook he used to have, a Spaniard called Jose, a perfect hand at all the Provencal dishes. Good creature, Merewater. Don't you think so?” Ouslow muttered a kind of half-assent; and added, “I don't know him.” Indeed, the lord in question was reputed as insufferably proud, and as rarely admitting a commoner to the honor of his acquaintance. “Poor Merewater! I remember playing him such a trick: to this hour he does not know who did it. I stole the menu of one of his grand dinners, and gave it to old Lord Bristock's cook, a creature that might have made the messes for an emigrant ship, and such a travesty of an entertainment never was seen. Merewater affected illness, and went away from the table firmly persuaded that the whole was got up to affront him.” “I thought the Earl of Bristock lived well and handsomely,” said George. “Down at Brentwood it was very well one was in the country and grouse and woodcocks, and salmon and pheasants, came all naturally and seasonably; besides, he really had some very remarkable Burgundy; and, though few people will drink it nowadays, Chambertin is a Christmas wine.”