"Now," says I, "my boy, I'll show you a 'dodge.' We'll see how it works."
Filling a plate full to the brim, with all and each of the various heavy courses in our vicinity, I very politely passed it over to my next neighbor with—
"Please to pass that up, sir?"
"Umph, eh?" says the gentleman, taking hold of the plate very gingerly; "pass it up?"
"Aye, yes, if you please," says I.
By this time he had fairly got the loaded plate in his fists, and began to look about him where to pass the plate to. Nobody in particular seemed on the watch for a spare plate. The gent looked back at me, but I was "cutting away" and watching from the extreme corner of my left eye the victim and his charge, while I pressed hard upon the corn pile of my friend's foot under the table.
At length, the victim thought he saw some one up the table waiting for the plate, and quickly he whispered to his next neighbor—
"Please, sir, to-to-a, just pass this plate up!"
The man took the plate, and being more of a practical operator than his neighbor, gave the plate over to his next neighbor, with—
"Pass this plate up to that gentleman, if you please," dodging his head towards an old gent in specs, who sat near the head of the table, grinning a ghastly smile over the field of good things.