"He polishes off a whole heap at one go," said another.
"It does help to keep a party together," said a third.
"And enables a lot of people to talk of dining at Castle Hautboy without lying," said a fourth.
"But why should a lot of people be enabled to say that they'd dined here?" asked Hautboy. "I like to see my friends at dinner. What did you think about it, Hampstead?"
"It's all according to Hampstead's theories," said one.
"Only he'd have had the tinkers and the tailors too," said another.
"And wouldn't have had the ladies and gentlemen," said a third.
"I would have had the tailors and tinkers," said Hampstead, "and I would have had the ladies and gentlemen, too, if I could have got them to meet the tailors and tinkers;—but I would not have had that young man who got me out into the hall just now."
"Why,—that was Crocker, the Post Office clerk," said Hautboy. "Why shouldn't we have a Post Office clerk as well as some one else? Nevertheless, Crocker is a sad cad." In the mean time Crocker was walking home to Penrith in his dress boots.