So Mr. Williams drove home to Ashtown Park, and had to sit down to dinner with his own small family party.
Mr. Williams' mutton consisted of first a little strong gravy soup lubricated and gelatinized with a little tapioca; vis-a-vis the soup a little piece of salmon cut out of the fish's center; lobster patties, rissoles, and two things with French names, stinking of garlic, on the flank.
Enter a boiled turkey poult with delicate white sauce; a nice tongue, not too green nor too salt, and a small saddle of six-tooth mutton, home-bred, home-fed; after this a stewed pigeon, faced by greengage tart, and some yellow cream twenty-four hours old; item, an iced pudding. A little Stilton cheese brought up the rear with a nice salad. This made way for a foolish trifling dessert of muscatel grapes, guava jelly and divers kickshaws diluted with agreeable wines varied by a little glass of Marasquino & Co., at junctures. So far so nice!
But alas! nothing is complete in this world, not even the dinner of a fair round justice with fat capon lined. There is always some drawback or deficiency here below—confound it! The wretch of a cook had forgotten to send up the gruel a la Josephs.
Next day, after Mr. Williams had visited the female prisoners and complimented Hawes on having initiated them into the art of silence, he asked where the chaplain was. Hawes instantly dispatched a messenger to inquire, and remembering that gentleman's threatened remonstrance, parried him by anticipation, thus:
“By-the-by, sir, I have a little complaint to make of him.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Williams, “what is that?”
“He took a prisoner's part against the discipline; but he doesn't know them, and they humbug him. But, sir, ought he to preach against me in the chapel of the jail?”
“Certainly not! Surely he has not been guilty of such a breach of discipline and good taste.”
“Oh! but wait, sir,” said Hawes, “hear the whole truth, and then perhaps you will blame me. You must know, sir, that I sometimes let out an oath. I was in the army, and we used all to swear there; and now a little of it sticks to me in spite of my teeth, and if his reverence had done me the honor to take me to task privately about it, I would have taken off my hat to him; but it is another thing to go and preach at me for it before all the jail.”