The Fitz-Boodle PapersThackeray, William Makepeace
General
The Fitz-Boodle Papers
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Imaginary letters; Satire, English
And now, is it not as clear as the sun at noonday, that A WANT exists
in London for a superintendent of the table--a gastronomic agent--a
dinner-master, as I have called him before? A man of such a profession
would be a metropolitan benefit; hundreds of thousands of people of the
respectable sort, people in white waistcoats, would thank him daily.
Calculate how many dinners are given in the City of London, and
calculate the numbers of benedictions that “the Agency” might win.
And as no doubt the observant man of the world has remarked that the
freeborn Englishman of the respectable class is, of all others, the most
slavish and truckling to a lord; that there is no fly-blown peer but he
is pleased to have him at his table, proud beyond measure to call him
by his surname (without the lordly prefix); and that those lords whom he
does not know, he yet (the freeborn Englishman) takes care to have their
pedigrees and ages by heart from his world-bible, the “Peerage:” as
this is an indisputable fact, and as it is in this particular class of
Britons that our agent must look to find clients, I need not say it is
necessary that the agent should be as high-born as possible, and that he
should be able to tack, if possible, an honorable or some other handle
to his respectable name. He must have it on his professional card--
THE HONORABLE GEORGE GORMAND GOBBLETON,
Apician Chambers, Pall Mall.
Or,
SIR AUGUSTUS CARVER CRAMLEY CRAMLEY,
Amphitryonic Council Office, Swallow Street.
or, in some such neat way, Gothic letters on a large handsome
crockeryware card, with possibly a gilt coat-of-arms and supporters, or
the blood-red hand of baronetcy duly displayed. Depend on it plenty of
guineas will fall in it, and that Gobbleton's supporters will support
him comfortably enough.
For this profession is not like that of the auctioneer, which I take to
be a far more noble one, because more varied and more truthful; but in
the Agency case, a little humbug at least is necessary. A man cannot be
a successful agent by the mere force of his simple merit or genius in
eating and drinking. He must of necessity impose upon the vulgar to a
certain degree. He must be of that rank which will lead them naturally
to respect him, otherwise they might be led to jeer at his profession;
but let a noble exercise it, and bless your soul, all the “Court Guide”
is dumb!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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