"Halloo! I say you, Mister there, just hand along that saas; give us a chance, will ye, at that; notion on't, what d'ye call that stuff?" "This?" says one, passing along a dish. "Pshaw, no, t'other there." "Oh! ah! yes, _this_," says my facetious friend. "Well, that ain't it, but no odds; fetch it along!" and down we sent the biggest dish of meat in our neighborhood. "Now," says I, "my boy, I'll show you a 'dodge.' We'll see how it works." Filling a plate full to the brim, with all and each of the various _heavy_ courses in our vicinity, I very politely passed it over to my next neighbor with-- "Please to pass that up, sir?" "Umph, eh?" says the gentleman, taking hold of the plate very gingerly; "pass it _up_?" "Aye, yes, if you please," says I. By this time he had fairly got the loaded plate in his fists, and began to look about him where to pass the plate _to_. Nobody in particular seemed on the watch for a _spare_ plate. The gent looked back at me, but I was "cutting away" and watching from the extreme corner of my left eye the victim and his charge, while I pressed hard upon the corn pile of my friend's foot under the table. At length, the victim thought he saw some one up the table waiting for the plate, and quickly he whispered to his next neighbor-- "Please, sir, to-to-a, _just pass this plate up!_" The man took the plate, and being more of a practical operator than his neighbor, gave the plate over to _his_ next neighbor, with-- "Pass this plate up to that gentleman, if you please," dodging his head towards an old gent in specs, who sat near the head of the table, grinning a ghastly smile over the field of good things. "It's _going!_" "_What?_" says my friend. "The plate; it's going the rounds; just you keep quiet, you'll see a good thing." The plate, at length, got to the head of the table. It was given to the old gentleman in specs; he looked over the top of his specs very deliberately at the "fodder," then back at the thin, pale, student-looking youth who handed it to him, then up and down the table. A raw-boned, gaunt and hollow-looking disciple caught the eye of the old gent; he must be the man who wanted the "load." His lips quacked as if in the act of--"pass this plate, sir,"--to his next neighbor; he was too far off for us to _hear_ his discourse. Well, the plate came booming along down the opposite side; the tall man declined it and gave it over to his next neighbor, who seemed a little tempted to take hold of the invoice, but just then it occurred to him, probably, that he was keeping _somebody_ (!) out of his grub, so he quickly turned to his neighbor and passed the plate. One or two more moves brought the plate within our range, and there it liked to have _stuck_, for a fussy old Englishman, in whom politeness did not stick out very prominently, grunted-- "I don't want it, sir." "Well, but, sir, please _pass it_," says the last victim, beseechingly holding out the plate.