“It used to be so, formerly,” said I, with an air of most consummate coolness, as I sat in an arm-chair, regaling myself with a cigar; “the practice you allude to, Smush, did prevail, I admit. But our fashionable laws change; one day it is all ultra-refinement and Sybarite luxury,—the next, they affect a degree of mock simplicity in their manners: anything for novelty! Now, for instance, eating fish with the fingers—”
“Do they, indeed, go so far?”
“Do they! ay, and fifty things worse. At a race-dinner the same silver cup goes round the table, drunk out of by every one. I have seen strange things in my time.”
“That you must, Mr. Cregan.”
“Latterly,” said I, warming with my subject, and seeing my auditory ready to believe anything, “they began the same system with the soup, and always passed the tureen round, each tasting it as it went. This was an innovation of the Duke of Struttenham's; but I don't fancy it will last.”
“And how do they manage about the hats, Mr. Cregan?”
“The last thing, in that way, was what I saw at Lord Mudbrooke's, at Richmond, where, not to hamper the guests with these foolish bits of card, which they were always losing, the servant in waiting chalked a number on the hat or coat, or whatever it might be, and then marked the same on the gentleman's back!”
Had it not been for the imposing gravity of my manner, the absurdity of this suggestion had been at once apparent; but I spoke like an oracle, and I impressed my words with the simple gravity of a commonplace truth.
“If you wish to do the very newest thing, Smush, that's the latest,—quite a fresh touch; and, I 'll venture to say, perfectly unknown here. It saves a world of trouble to all parties; and as you brush it off before they leave, it is always another claim for the parting douceur!”
“I'll do it,” said Smush, eagerly; “they cannot be angry—”