Dinner, which should be a science, has long been treated as one of the Fine Arts. Now every Fine Art, as we all know, has its fashions and its caprices. Those who are old enough to remember the dinners of twenty, thirty, or forty years ago can remember many of their fashions and caprices. In the Thirties, for instance, everything was carved upon the table. It required a man with a strong wrist to give a dinner-party. Fortunately, a dinner then consisted of few dishes. They drank sherry with dinner, and port afterwards. The champagne, if there was any, was sweet. The guests were bidden for half-past six: they sat down to dinner before seven. At eight the ladies went up-stairs: at half-past ten the men joined them. Their faces were flushed, their shoulders were inclined to lurch, and their speech was the least bit thick. Wonderful to relate, brandy-and-water used to be served to these topers in the drawing-room itself. Mr. Dering had altered little in his dinner customs. They mostly belonged to the Sixties, with a survival of some belonging to the Thirties. Things were carved upon the sideboard: this was in deference to modern custom: champagne formed an integral part of the meal: but the dinner itself was solid: the cloth after dinner was removed, leaving the dark polished mahogany after the old fashion: the furniture of the room was also in the old style: the chairs were heavy and solid: the walls were hung with a dark crimson paper of velvety texture: the curtains and the carpets were red: there were pictures of game and fruit: the sideboard was as solid as the table. Checkley the clerk, who was invited as a faithful servant of the House, to the celebration of the new partnership, was the first to arrive. Dressed in a hired suit, he looked like an undertaker's assistant: the gloom upon his face heightened the resemblance. Why the partnership caused this appearance of gloom, I know not. Certainly, he could never expect to be made a partner himself. It was perhaps a species of jealousy which filled his soul. He would no longer know so much of the business.