"May I trouble you for a little horse-radish?" he suddenly asked.
Mrs. Merryweather and Miss Bachelor—astonishment snatching up their eyebrows—simultaneously ceased eating. Mr. Revell, whose deafness prevented his astonishment, ate on. Ask for horse-radish! There was something bewildering in the very extravagance of the expectation.
In silence, they awaited Mrs. Tring's reply.
"Horse-radish!" said that lady, with intense suavity. "Dear me! how very forgetful of me. But we never eat it ourselves; and it never occurred to me that you might like it. Very forgetful; very forgetful, indeed."
"Pray, do not say a word about it. I care very little for it—only a matter of habit."
Emboldened by this audacity in the newcomer, Miss Bachelor ventured to think she could eat another cut of beef. Mrs. Tring, scowlingly, and in the most repressed tone, suggested the propriety of keeping a corner for the second course; to which Miss Bachelor assented, now fairly unable to conceive the immensity of the revolution which the appearance of the Chamberlaynes had created. A second course! Visions of pheasants—perhaps even grouse—darkened her bewildered brain.
Mr. Revell, as usual, had heard nothing, but sent up his plate for a second help; to all Mrs. Tring's shouts about "keeping a corner," imperturbably answering, "Yes, rather well done; and a bit of fat."
Mrs. Merryweather remembered how on one occasion she was dining at Colonel James's who had married an old schoolfellow of hers, the daughter of the man who for so many years kept the What's-the-name hotel in Jermyn Street, where the Polish count stayed so many weeks, and was so like Thaddeus of Warsaw, only his name was Winsky, and he came from Cracow, and about whom there was that tragical story; how one night as he was walking down Regent Street, when he was suddenly felled by a blow on the head, and was taken senseless to his hotel. It was a most extraordinary occurrence, and excited a great deal of talk at the time; but Mrs. Merryweather could not at that instant remember the exact circumstances. But, however, that was neither here nor there. What she was going to say was, that her old school-fellow had married Colonel James—quite the gentleman—and often invited her to dinner; very good dinners they were too; plenty of wine and delicacies of the season—peas when they first came in, and all that sort of thing; well, one day—she never could forget it, live as long as she might—she had eaten so plentifully of the first course, a delicious saddle of mutton, that when the game arrived—she had not anticipated game—she was scarcely able to touch it; and Colonel James, with his usual affability, observed, "Ah, Mrs. Merryweather, you should have kept a corner for the second course."
This thrilling anecdote being ended, the beef was removed. Cecil was not a little amused when he saw that an apple pudding constituted this famous second course. But as, in the memory of man and boarder, no precedent for such an extravagance as pudding with hot meat had been known at Mrs. Tring's, the ladies were quite satisfied that such a second course should appear at all. The only misgiving in their minds, was whether such cheer was to become habitual; or was it simply an illusive and treacherous display for that occasion only?
A Dutch cheese followed the pudding, and there the dinner terminated.