“Yes, massa,” replied Sam, and was seen no more.
“Don’t you think, Miss ***,” said I, “it would be better for you to make up your mind as to what you intend to eat before you come to dinner? It would, I think, be an easy task, as in every large hotel or boarding-house there appears to be the same daily variety of standing dishes.”
“I am not hungry,” replied the lady, with a furtive glance on the plate of her vis-à-vis, on which the white tender breast of a turkey, hugged in the embrace of a ruddy slice of Virginia ham, was softly reposing on a bed of mashed potatoes, and that delicious vegetable designated by the poetic appellation of “squash.” The extreme borders of the plate were garnished with cranberry and apple sauce; and a quarter of a cabbage, placed with the dexterity of an artist in the background, just completed the perspective.
“Neither am I,” said I. “Will you allow me to take wine with you?”
A slight convulsion of her body, similar to the one previously described,—and of which no one can form a correct idea who has not witnessed the effect of a galvanic battery on a person touching the two poles,—informed me of her acquiescence. Accordingly I filled both our glasses with champaign; and, looking at her with all the tenderness which the effervescence of that sparkling liquid is capable of inspiring, emptied mine to the very bottom. When I raised my eyes again I found hers dissolved in dew; for, instead of drinking, she had only suffered the spirituous ether to play with the end of her nose, the liquid itself remaining untouched in the vessel. I now began to feel concerned for her; so, seizing the arm of one of the attendants, who was just attempting to make his escape with the remnant of an oyster pie, I made at once a prize of his cargo, and without further ceremony shared it equally with my fastidious companion.
“Now what vegetable will you be helped to?” demanded I.
“To none, if you please, with a pâté aux huîtres,” was the reply of the young lady.
“But, before you will have done with the pâté aux huîtres, the vegetables will be gone.”
“I am sorry for that,” said she; “but I cannot bear taking so many things on one and the same plate. The very sight of it is sufficient to take away one’s appetite.”
Here her vis-à-vis bestowed upon her a long look of astonishment, resting his left elbow on the table, and reducing the velocity of his right hand, which was armed with a formidable three-pronged fork, almost to zero.