“Oh, very well indeed,” lisped Jekyl; “and like him much.”
Onslow could not help a stare at the man who, with perfect coolness and such an air of patronage, professed his opinion of the most distinguished fashionable of the day.
“He has a very pretty taste in equipage,” continued Jekyl, “but never could attain to the slightest knowledge of a dinner.”
Onslow was thunderstruck. Maynard, whose entertainments were the triumph of the Clarendon, thus criticised by the man he had seen supping like a mouse on a morsel of mouldy cheese!
“Talking of dinners, by the way,” said Jekyl, “what became of Merewater?”
“Lord Merewater? he was in waiting when we left England.”
“A very tidy cook he used to have, a Spaniard called Jose, a perfect hand at all the Provencal dishes. Good creature, Merewater. Don't you think so?”
Ouslow muttered a kind of half-assent; and added, “I don't know him.” Indeed, the lord in question was reputed as insufferably proud, and as rarely admitting a commoner to the honor of his acquaintance.
“Poor Merewater! I remember playing him such a trick: to this hour he does not know who did it. I stole the menu of one of his grand dinners, and gave it to old Lord Bristock's cook, a creature that might have made the messes for an emigrant ship, and such a travesty of an entertainment never was seen. Merewater affected illness, and went away from the table firmly persuaded that the whole was got up to affront him.”
“I thought the Earl of Bristock lived well and handsomely,” said George.