"Pass it? Here, mister, 's your plate," says Bull, at length reluctantly seizing on the plate, and rushing it on to his next neighbor, who started-- "Not mine, sir." "Not yours! Who does it belong to? Pass it down to somebody." Off went the plate again. Several ladies turned up their pretty eyes and noses while the gents _passed it_ by them. "Why, if there ain't that plate a going the rounds, that you gave me!" says my next neighbor, to whom I had first given the "currency." "That plate? Oh, yes, so it is; well," says I, with feigned astonishment, "this is the first time I ever saw a good supper so universally discarded!" The plate was off again. It reached the foot of the table. An elderly lady looked up, looked around, removed a large sweet potato from the pile--then passed it along. An old salty-looking captain, just then took a vacant seat, and the plate reached him just in the nick of time. He looked voracious-- "Ah," said he, with a savage growl, "that's your sort; thunder and oakum, I'm as peckish as a shark, and here's the _duff for me!_" That ended the peregrinations of the plate, and I and my friend--_yelled right out!_ A Hint to Soyer. Magrundy says, in his work on _Grub_, that a Frenchman will "frigazee" a pair of old boots and make a respectable soup out of an ancient chapeau; but our friend Perriwinkle affirms that the French ain't "nowhere," after a feat he saw in the kitchen arrangement of a "cheap boarding house" in the North End:--the landlady made a chowder out of an old broom mixed with sinders, and after all the boarders had dined upon it scrumptiously, the remains made broth for the whole family, next day, besides plenty of fragments left for a poor family! That landlady is bound--_to make Rome howl!_ The Leg of Mutton. I'm going to state to you the remarkable adventures of a very remarkable man, who went to market to get a leg of mutton for his Sunday dinner. I have heard, or read somewhere or other, almost similar stories; whether they were real or imaginary, I am unable to say; but I can vouch for the authenticity of my story, for I know the hero well. In the year 1812, it will be recollected that we had some military disputes with England, which elicited some pretty tall fights by land and sea, and the land we live in was considerably excited upon the subject, and patriotism rose to many degrees above blood heat. Philadelphia, about that time, like all other cities, I suppose, was the scene of drum-beating, marching and counter-marching, and volunteering of the patriotic people.