| ALDERMAN. IDEAL. | REAL. |
"Ah, Snuffers! Old friend of mine—where is he?"
"There," and you point to the name on the plan and nod over to the other side of the table.
"No, that's not Snuffers! I recollect now he told me he would not be able to come. That's Major Bangs, a guest asked to fill a vacant chair."
Similarly you find that the eye-glass youth is not Canon Dormouse, the clerical-looking gentleman not the Master of the Scalpers' Company, and so on. Oh, they are a capital idea, those plans!
On the occasion in question I met one of the Sheriffs of the City, who is also an Alderman—not a fat, apoplectic, greasy, vulgar Crœsus, but a handsome, thoughtful-looking gentleman, decidedly under fifty, who might be anything but an Alderman. But indeed the long-accepted type of an Alderman is exploded—such a type, bursting with good dinners, wealth and vulgarity, must explode—and the phœnix which has risen from his ashes would scarcely be recognised by the most liberal of naturalists as belonging to the same species. John Leech may have had living examples for his gross and repulsive monuments of gluttony; in my own experience, however, I find a gulf of great magnitude between the Alderman of caricature and the Alderman I have met in the flesh. The former has gone over to the majority of "four-bottle men" and other bygone phenomena.
Well, let us return to the dinner. The fare is excellent, the company delightful, and I am just revelling in that beatific state of mind born of a sufficiency of the good things of this earth, when nothing seems to me more pleasant than a City dinner, when I am tapped upon the shoulder by the Toastmaster, who bears a warrant to consign me to misery. I have to make a speech. I have passed through the ordeal before, but I find that familiarity, as far as speech-making is concerned, breeds no contempt. Between the City and the art in which I am interested there exists no affinity, and this perhaps is a blessing in disguise, as for once in a way one is of necessity compelled to "sink the shop." However, it is soon over. A plunge, a gasp or two, a few quick strokes, and I am through the breakers and on the shore—I mean on my seat. That was years ago—I am an old hand now.
I never could subscribe to that unwritten and unhonoured law which provides that an after-dinner speaker is entitled to five minutes in which to apologise for his incompetency in that capacity, and fifty-five minutes in which to speechify; and I have often wished that speechmakers one and all would recollect that a few words well-chosen and to the point, and a timely termination, are far more acceptable to the listener than all their maundering oratorical tours "from China to Peru," from the Mansion House to the moon. When I am going to a City dinner my own children show a lively interest to know the name of the Company, and if I name the Skinners' Guild their interest culminates in uproarious delight; but if I mention any other, most uncomplimentary groans greet the announcement, for the guests of the Company to which I refer can choose either to take or have sent to them a huge box of the choicest sweetmeats when the entertainment is over.
J. WHISTLER, AFTER A CITY DINNER. (DRAWN WITH MY LEFT HAND.)