"I wish we were alone," she whispered. "These people are pigs."
Had they been alone they would probably have fed off the same plate, and given each other kisses between every mouthful. As it was they could do nothing, except play with each other's feet beneath the table. Everybody else was hard at work. Faces were swollen on every side, and the sounds were more suggestive of a farmyard at feeding time than a party of immortal beings taking a little refreshment. There was no conversation. All that had been done during the time of waiting. "'Tis a butiful day, sure enough," and "A proper fine vair," had exhausted the topics. Boodles was rather too severe when she called the feasters pigs, but they were not pleasant to watch, and they seemed to have lost the divine spark somehow. Philosophers might have wondered whether the species was worth reproducing.
The young people soon left the table, and a couple very differently constituted pressed themselves into the vacant places. The others were not half satisfied. Some of them would stuff to the verge of apoplexy, then roll down-stairs, and swill whisky-and-water by the tumblerful. It was holiday; a time of over-eating and over-drinking. They had little self-control. They unbuttoned their clothes at table, and wiped their streaming faces with the cloth.
"I'm glad we went to goose dinner, but I shouldn't go again. It was gorging, not eating," said Boodles, as they went along the street.
"Let's go and see the living pictures," said Aubrey.
"But we've seen them."
"We'll go again. Perhaps they will turn on a fresh lot."
They liked the living pictures, because the lights were turned down, and they could snuggle together like two kittens and bite each other's fingers.
"Then we'll go for a walk—our walk. But no," sighed Boodles; "we can't. It will be time for the ordeal."
The fairy-tale was getting on. Ogre time had come. Boodles was to go and drink tea with her boy's parents.