“Hobnobbing wastes time,” said Jack Ginger, laying down the pot out of which he had been drinking for the last few minutes; “and, besides, it is not customary now in genteel society—so pass the bottle about.”
[I here pause in my narrative to state, on more accurate recollection, that we had not decanters; we drank from the black bottle, which Jack declared was according to the fashion of the Continent.]
So the port was passed round, and declared to be superb. Antony Harrison received the unanimous applause of the company; and, if he did not blush at all the fine things that were said in his favour, it was because his countenance was of that peculiar hue that no addition of red could be visible upon it. A blush on Antony’s face would be like gilding refined gold.
Whether cheese is prohibited or not in the higher circles of the West End, I cannot tell; but I know it was not prohibited in the very highest chambers of the Temple.
“It’s double Gloucester,” said Jack Ginger; “prime, bought at the corner—Heaven pay the cheesemonger, for I shan’t—but, as he is a gentleman, I give you his health.”
“I don’t think,” said Joe Macgillicuddy, “that I ought to demean myself to drink the health of a cheesemonger; but I’ll not stop the bottle.”
And, to do Joe justice, he did not. Then we attacked the cheese, and in an incredibly short period we battered in a breach of an angle of 45 degrees, in a manner that would have done honour to any engineer that directed the guns at San Sebastian. The cheese, which on its first entry on the table presented the appearance of a plain circle, was soon made to exhibit a very different shape, as may be understood by the subjoined diagram:—
[A, original cheese; EBD, cheese after five minutes standing on the table; EBC, angle of 45°.]
With cheese came, and with cheese went, celery. It is unnecessary to repeat what a number of puns were made on that most pun-provoking of plants.