Chapter VIII.—ENTERTAINING.—
"Thou didst eat strange flesh
Which some did die to look on."
——
Entertaining is nervous work, as all the world knows. The anxiety is considerably increased in a small country station like Remyo, because one cannot be sure that the rats will not devour the food beforehand, or that the cook will not take that opportunity of having "fever," a polite synonym for getting drunk, much in use among Burman servants.
The dinner party is the most general form of entertainment in Remyo, but not of very frequent occurrence; the reasons being, the limited number of available guests and the restricted nature of the menu. No sane person would dream of inviting another sane person to dine upon nothing but Burmese chicken, even displayed in various disguises from soup to savoury.
Once a week beef can be obtained, so dinner parties are usually given on "beef days." Should an invitation arrive for another date, great excitement prevails as to what special delicacy has been procured.
Once we were presented with a peacock, and gave a dinner party to celebrate the event, the peacock itself being the chief item of the celebration. Our guests arrived full of anticipation of some unknown treat; we received them "big with pride."
But alas! the vanity of human hopes. During the early part of the dinner, over the chicken entrées, the conversation turned upon the relative merits as food of various kinds of fowl. One of our guests, a man full of information on every subject, interesting and otherwise, suddenly announced cheerfully: