B. Still worse. My dear Ansard, it is however of no consequence. Nothing is more difficult to attain, yet nothing is more easy to describe, than a good dinner. I was once reading a very fashionable novel by a very fashionable bookseller, for the author is a mere nonentity, and was very much surprised at the accuracy with which a good dinner was described. The mystery was explained a short time afterwards, when casually taking up Eustache Eude’s book in Sams’s library, I found that the author had copied it out exactly from the injunctions of that celebrated gastronome. You can borrow the book.
A. Well, we will suppose that done; but I am all anxiety to know what is the danger from which the heroine is to be rescued.
B. I will explain. There are two species of existence—that of mere mortal existence, which is of little consequence, provided, like Caesar, the hero and heroine die decently: the other is of much greater consequence, which is fashionable existence. Let them once lose caste in that respect, and they are virtually dead, and one mistake, one oversight, is a death-blow for which there is no remedy, and from which there is no recovery. For instance, we will suppose our heroine to be quite confounded with the appearance of our hero—to have become distraite, rêveuse—and, in short, to have lost her recollection and presence of mind. She has been assisted to filet de soles. Say that the only sauce ever taken with them is au macédoine—this is offered to her, and, at the same time, another, which to eat with the above dish would be unheard of. In her distraction she is about to take the wrong sauce—actually at the point of ruining herself for ever and committing suicide upon her fashionable existence, while the keen grey eyes of Sir Antinous Antibes, the arbiter of fashion, are fixed upon her. At this awful moment, which is for ever to terminate her fashionable existence, the Honourable Augustus Bouverie, who sits next to her, gently touches her séduisante sleeve—blandly smiling, he whispers to her that the other is the sauce macédoine. She perceives her mistake, trembles at her danger, rewards him with a smile, which penetrates into the deepest recesses of his heart, helps herself to the right sauce, darts a look of contemptuous triumph upon Sir Antinous Antibes, and, while she is dipping her sole into the sauce, her soul expands with gratitude and love.
A. I see, I see. Many thanks; my heroine is now a fair counterpart of my hero.
“Ah, sure a pair were never seen,
So justly form’d to meet by nature.”
B. And now I’ll give you another hint, since you appear grateful. It is a species of clap-trap in a novel, which always takes—to wit, a rich old uncle or misanthrope, who, at the very time that he is bitterly offended and disgusted with the hero, who is in awkward circumstances, pulls out a pocketbook and counts down, say fifteen or twenty thousand pounds in bank notes, to relieve him from his difficulties. An old coat and monosyllables will increase the interest.
A. True. (sighing.) Alas! there are no such uncles in real life; I wish there were.
B. I beg your pardon; I know no time in which my uncle forks out more bank notes than at present.
A. Yes, but it is for value, or more than value, received.
B. That I grant; but I am afraid it is the only “uncle” left now; except in a fashionable novel. But you comprehend the value of this new auxiliary.