“‘Waiter, waiter!’ shriek half a dozen voices in as many keys, and in accents ranging from the imperious to the imploring. Enters then a slipshod, soiled being, with watery eyes and apologetic mien. ‘Here, you, where’s the dinner?’ chorus the starving, half-drenched passengers.
“‘Dinner?’—scratching his head; ’er—well—er: beg pardon, gents, but the “Independent” was rather late like to-day, and the “Highflyer,” she were down early, and—er——’ Well, the gist of all these apologetics was that the company had to wait while the next joint was being dished up.
“Meanwhile the ‘Independents’ absorbing all the fire are bustled off by a portly man in a low-crowned hat and a huge caped box-coat, or ‘upper Benjamin,’ as it used to be called. ‘Gentlemen,’ he roars, ‘time’s up!’ With great to-do of cloaking, shawling, greatcoating, and paying, they are outside, and we, in the twinkling of an eye, in their fireside seats, listening to the curses levelled at the ostler by the outsides for letting the seats get wet. With a precautionary ‘Sit tight,’ they lurch violently off, and we are left anxiously awaiting the arrival of that dinner.
“At last it comes: a procession of three—the landlady, parlourmaid, and waiter—bearing dishes with tin covers. These battered relics removed, a coarse fat leg of mutton, roasted to a cinder, is unveiled, together with a huge joint of boiled beef, very much underdone; potatoes, hot without and hard within, and some gritty cabbage.
“‘Slice of mutton for a lady,’ says the waiter, approaching a stout gentleman in the act of helping himself to that part of the joint so highly prized by epicures, called the ‘Pope’s eye.’ The direction of the knife is instantly changed, and the lady’s plate filled with a somewhat less desirable ration. ‘Please, sir, a little fat,’ continues the assiduous waiter, ‘and a little gravy,’ he adds, anxious to earn a tip from the old stager of the male sex, who thus invariably forwarded his demands, as coming from a lady. Numerous other applications are made to the carver, who, disgusted with his place, helps himself to his coveted delicacy, and requests the waiter, with emphasis, to attend to the other passengers himself.
“Time flies fast, and especially time devoted to pleasure, and none of the party are aware how fast the glass has run, until the entrance of the coachman, informing all concerned that the coach is ready.
“Up starts the stout gentleman. ‘Coachman, the time can’t be up; I’ve not eaten a morsel.’
“‘Full twenty minutes, sir,’ replies that Jehu.
“‘Abominable,’ continues the first speaker.
“‘Who riseth from a feast with that keen appetite that he sits down?’ quotes a stage-struck attorney’s clerk.