We have described how we eat, but said nothing yet of what was eaten. Yet our practical narrative cannot ignore the matter. Certain delicate subjects, however, are best treated dialectically, and perhaps we could not here do better than record a dialogue which we think we must have overheard between Grumbler and Cheerful, two dramatic characters not unknown to readers of the School Magazine some year ago: _Cheer_. Have you read that jolly letter in _The Times_, on "Uppingham by the Sea?" _Grumb_. Yes, I have; and the writer says, "The commissariat was on the whole good." I must say that surprises me. _Cheer_. Why where was it at fault, then? _Grumb_. Where? It was at fault all round. Look at the puddings--everlastingly smoked! _Cheer_. Yes; but the commissariat is not puddings. _Grumb_. Well then, the coals--all chips and small dust; at least, when there _were_ any. _Cheer_. But the commissariat is not coals. _Grumb_. Then the cold plates your gravy froze on! _Cheer_. My good fellow, who ever heard of hot plates on a picnic? _Grumb_. How about the vegetables then, that never came to table except to make believe there was something in the Irish stew? or what do you call the thing they sometimes served out for butter? _Cheer_. Ah! well! "a rose by any other name"--you know the rest. But still, the commissariat isn't bad because the butter was so sometimes. _Grumb_. Oh! of course, you can say the Commissariat (if you spell it with a big C) doesn't mean the meat, or the soup, or the puddings, or the greens, or the butter, or the coals, or the rest of it--but if it isn't these, I should like to know what it is. _Cheer_. (_loftily_). My good friend, it is easy for you to say this thing or the other was not to your fancy, but it was not quite so easy a matter for our landlord to provide a daily supply of meat, bread, and dairy stuff for some four hundred people; especially as it had to be organised for the occasion, without previous experience. I take it if you knew how the farmers had to be coaxed to sell us their butter, how green things couldn't be had in the markets for love or money, and if you knew how many miles of railway those beeves travelled to and fro between pasture, slaughter-house, and kitchen, before their weary joints rested on our table, I say you would thank the commissariat that you hadn't something worth grumbling about. I am glad we never were on famine rations. I asked to live, not to live well. _Grumb_. (_a trifle ashamed, but dogged_). Why, of course, I don't mean to say things might not have been worse. Still I stick to it, they were not nice.