This is a beautiful show-piece for luncheon or supper, and when it has served the end of its creation in this respect, can easily be carved with a sharp knife and remain, even in partial ruin, a thing of beauty.
GRAVY.
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“Presiding over an establishment like this makes sad havoc with the features, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,” said Mrs. Todgers. “The gravy alone is enough to add twenty years to one’s age. The anxiety of that one item, my dears, keeps the mind continually upon the stretch.”
Without following the worthy landlady further into the depths of her dissertation upon the fondness of commercial gentlemen for the “item,” I would answer a question addressed to me by a correspondent who “believes”—she is so kind as to inform me—“in Common Sense.”
“I notice that many of your made dishes are dependent for savoriness upon ‘a cup of good broth,’ or, ‘half a cup of strong gravy.’ Let me ask, in the spirit of sincere desire for useful information, where is the gravy or broth to come from?”
In return I plagiarize the words of a lady who accomplishes more with less noise and fretting than any other person I ever saw.
“I don’t see how you find time for it all!” exclaimed an admiring visitor.
“I make it, if I can get it in no other way,” was the rejoinder.