AN AUCKLAND TABLE D'HÔTE.
The afternoon was closing in, so collecting the luggage required for immediate use, and locking the rest of our come-at-able belongings in our cabins, we made haste to get on board the same boat that had brought me out. My spirits had slightly revived, as it had occurred to me that very probably the caravan and its appurtenances would show to better advantage by gaslight.
Queen Street Wharf was soon reached, and having settled the waterman's claim, I hailed a cab, into which we all bundled, and in a short time found ourselves at our destination. Summoning the landlady, and requesting her to show my wife the sleeping apartments, I stayed behind to see to the luggage, and—I don't mind confessing—to allow her time to get over the first shock.
Entering our bedroom a little later with the portmanteaus, I was greatly pleased and surprised to find my wife apparently reconciled to the surroundings, her only remark on the subject being that it was a queer-looking place, and not much bigger than our cabin. She was greatly puzzled as to whether she ought to change her dress for an evening one before appearing in the public room, but I emphatically assured her—having the skittle alley in my eye—that it was quite unnecessary, and we remained chatting until a tinkling bell announced that tea was served.
A strange scene awaited us on entering the eating shed. Some twelve or fourteen men—I beg pardon, gentlemen—and five ladies were seated on as many rough-looking kitchen chairs, busily engaged in attacking the comestibles placed before them.
A few—a very decided few—contented themselves with making the fork the medium of communication between their food and their mouths, but the greater majority used for this purpose both knives and forks with equal skill and success.
At our entrance they paused momentarily from their labour of love, and favoured us with grins which seemed to say, "What confounded idiots you are to come here." One lady of angular aspect, and with hair of the corkscrew type of architecture, smiled affably, however, and, reassured by her complacency, we seated ourselves at her end of the table.
The gentlemen, who, with three exceptions, sat in their shirt sleeves, were too deeply engrossed in the work before them to converse, and the clatter of knives and forks was for some time the only sound heard. We sat gazing at the scene, until a husky voice from behind demanded "Chops or 'am and eggs!" and recalled to our minds the object of our visit. Having decided in favour of chops, some black cindery looking bits of meat and bone were placed before us—resembling the delicious grilled chops of the London chop-house about as nearly as a bushman's stew resembles a vol-au-vent â la financière.
I managed to stay the pangs of hunger with the assistance of some hunches of stale bread, plates of which were ranged at intervals down the centre of the table. My poor wife, however, could scarcely eat anything. As soon as we decently could, for the coatless gentry were still at work, we retired to our rooms, both wife and self depressed in spirits, Mary Ann sulky, and the children in a state of subdued mutiny.
"We will get out of this wretched hole to-morrow, so cheer up, dear," I exclaimed to my wife after a prolonged silence. "It's past seven o'clock now, and if you don't want me, I'll take a stroll down the town, and get something for supper."