LEAVES FROM A CANDIDATE'S DIARY.
Billsbury, Sunday, May 25.—CHORKLE'S dinner came off last night. The dinner-hour was seven o'clock. CHORKLE'S house is in The Grove, a sort of avenue of detached houses shaded by trees. The Colonel himself was magnificent. He wore a most elaborately-frilled shirt-front, with three massive jewelled studs. His waistcoat was beautifully embroidered in black with a kind of vine-leaf pattern, the buttons being of silver, with the regimental badge embossed upon them. His handkerchief was a gorgeous one of blue silk. He wore it in his waistcoat, carefully arranged, so as to show all round above the opening. It looked something like the ribbon of some Order at a distance. Mrs. CHORKLE is rather a pleasant woman, with a manner which suggests that she is much trampled on by her domineering husband. How on earth she ever induced herself to marry him I can't make out. The chief guests were Sir CHARLES and Lady PENFOLD. Sir CHARLES'S father was a large Billsbury contractor, who made no end of money, and represented Billsbury in the House a good many years ago. He was eventually made a Baronet for his services to the Party. The present Sir CHARLES doesn't take much interest in politics, occupying himself chiefly in hunting, &c., but they are people of great consideration in Billsbury; in fact Lady PENFOLD is the leader of Society in Billsbury, and not to know them is to argue yourself unknown. Sir CHARLES himself is an Oxford man, and we had a good deal of talk about the old place.
"Yes," he said, "I was at the House more than thirty years ago, and to tell you the truth, it's the only House (with a capital H), that I ever wanted te be in."
The fact of the matter, so JERRAM told me, was that Sir CHARLES did once want to stand for Parliament, but somehow or other the scheme fell through, and since then he's always spoken rather bitterly of the House of Commons. Their daughter, whom I took in to dinner, is a very pretty girl of nineteen, with plenty to say for herself. She told me they were going to be in London for about three weeks in June and July, so I hope to see something of them. Besides the PENFOLDS there were Mr. and Mrs. TOLLAND; Mrs. TOLLAND in a green silk dress with more gold chains wound about various parts of her person than I ever saw on any other woman. Two officers of CHORKLE'S Volunteers were there with their wives, Major WORBOYS, an enormous, red-whiskered man who doesn't think much, privately, of CHORKLE'S ability as a soldier, and Captain YATMAN, a dapper little fellow, whose weakness it is to pretend to know all about smart Society in London.
Altogether there were twenty guests. Precisely at seven o'clock a bugle sounded on the landing outside the drawing-room to announce dinner. Everything in the CHORKLE family is done by bugle-calls. They have reveillé at 7 A.M., the sergeants' call for the servants' dinner, and lights out at eleven o'clock every night. As soon as the call was finished, CHORKLE went up to Lady PENFOLD. "Shall we march, Lady PENFOLD?" he said. "Sir CHARLES will bring up the rear with Mrs. C." And thus we went down-stairs.
The dinner was a most tremendous and wonderful entertainment, and must have lasted two hours, at the very least. There were two soups, three fishes, dozens of entrées, three or four joints—the mere memory of it is indigestive. The talk was almost entirely about local matters, the chief subject of discussion being the Mastership of the Foxhounds. The present Master is not going to keep them on, as he is a very old man, and everybody seems to want Sir CHARLES to take them, but he hangs back. Difficulties about the subscription, I fancy.
In the middle of dinner there was a fiendish row outside. I saw poor Mrs. CHORKLE turn pale, while the Colonel got purple with fury, and upset his champagne as he turned to say something to the butler. Discovered afterwards that the disturbance was caused by two of the young CHORKLES, who had got out of their bedrooms, and were lying in ambush for the dishes. HOBBES LEVIATHAN CHORKLE had carried off a dish of sweetbreads, for which STRAFFORD THOROUGH CHORKLE had expressed a liking. The result was, that HOBBES LEVIATHAN got his head punched by STRAFFORD THOROUGH, who then rubbed his face with sweetbread.
After dinner there was music, but not a whiff of tobacco.
Mother comes to open the Bazaar on Wednesday.