"Call upon Harry Furniss this evening Holborn Restaurant Thirteen Club Dinner for orders re funeral arrangements."
The receiver of the telegram, I learnt from his card, had been in business fifty-four years, but evidently this was the first time he had been the victim of this Theodore Hookish joke. I called the funeral furnisher in. Unobserved by the green-tied guests and the cross-eyed waiters, he walked through the banqueting hall, and as soon as he arrived at the chair, black-gloved, hat in hand, with the ominous foot rule projecting from the pocket of his funereal overcoat, I stood up and introduced him to the company, read the telegram, and invited him to go round the tables and take the orders. Whether it was that the man of coffins met the gaze of any particularly cross-eyed waiter, or was overcome by the laughter called forth by my solemn request—an outbreak foreign to the ears of a gentleman of his calling—I know not, but he promptly vanished. Later in the evening a request came from him for a present of one of the coffin-shaped salt-cellars, and no doubt the one I sent him will adorn his window for another fifty-four years, to the delight of the Cambridge undergraduates whose little joke was so successful.
THE CHAIRMAN WILL BE PLEASED TO SPILL SALT WITH YOU.
From the "St. James's Budget."
In place of the old-fashioned formula, "The Chairman will be pleased to drink wine with the gentlemen on his right," and then on his left, the Toastmaster had to announce that the Chairman would be pleased to "spill salt" with those on his right, etc.; but force of habit was too strong, and "drink wine" came out, and although this was corrected, it was strange that in some cases the guests held up their glasses and did not spill salt. Of course, throwing salt over the shoulder was prohibited; that superstitious operation would have been sufficient to disqualify any member.
A KNIFE I WAS PRESENTED WITH.
Beside each member was placed a looking-glass, and in the course of the evening it went forth that "The Chairman will be pleased to shiver looking-glasses with the members," and smash! smash! went the mercury-coated glass all over the tables.
It then fell to me to present each of the thirteen chairmen with a pen-knife, refusing of course the customary coin in return. I was presented with a ferocious-looking knife, with a multiplicity of blades and other adjuncts, which I treasure as a memento of the dinner.
These are a few trifles I had to deal with in addition to the usual toasts, and I fervently trust it may never again be my lot to be called upon to take the chair at a "unique banquet" entailing such surprises and shocks and so many speeches: