“What do you think, old cock?” said Mr. Dodson fils, placing his fiancée at the right hand of his hearty, yet majestic parent.
“No sparring for places,” cried Mr. Dodson fils in a voice of large authority. “You’ve got to tackle the ham, Percy, my son; and Joe Cox, you set about those ducks. You ought to be used to ’em by this time.”
In spite, however, of the airy and invincible good humour of Mr. Dodson fils, it called for no particular acuteness of observation to detect that a gloom had suddenly overspread the company. Mr. Dodson fils may even have been conscious of it himself; but, even if he was, his gay courage and inimitable flair would admit no check; and, further, it was his boast “that he had a mind above trifles.” But, in spite of this, it was apparent to all that a gloom had overspread the company.
“I call it an insult to me,” said Chrissie across the table to the goddess in a defiant undertone. “Jimmy will hear of this again.”
“Poor form, I must say,” said Mr. Davis to Miss Sparhawk, an agitated but voluble young lady who had arrived late. “I should have thought Jimmy’s old man would have known better.”
In spite of the indefatigable exertions of Mr. Dodson fils, who took upon himself the somewhat exacting duties of “head waiter,” the vigorous manipulation of knives and forks, and the revivifying influence of what Mr. Dodson fils facetiously termed “the gooseberry”—a yellow, fizzing liquid which Mr. Jordan, with a lively recollection of a recent experience, tasted very warily, and found almost nice—in spite of all these circumstances, it was only too clear that something had passed from the gay assembly that could never return.
Mr. Jordan ate very little of the robust foods that were spread before him in such profusion; but the goddess, who so miraculously had been confided to his care, behaved before these viands with wonderful vigour, resolution and success. It was far from Mr. Jordan’s province to marvel that a goddess should eat so much, or with such an absence of delicacy, but marvel he did at the catholicity of a taste that could deal so faithfully with meats of this sort, which in no sense seemed to compare with her native nectar and ambrosia.
A spasmodic flicker of gaiety was imparted to the company by the toasts and speeches. Police-Sergeant Dodson, in referring in appropriate terms to an event which concerned the scion of his house very nearly, “hoped Jimmy, who was a good boy, would make a better man than his father.”
“Taken as read, old cock,” interposed Mr. Dodson fils.
In the course of the reply made by Mr. Dodson fils to the toast of his own health and that of his fiancée, he testified with a bonhomie that was most engaging, and in terms of great felicity, to the pleasure derived by all present from the presence of everybody else.