“Squab-pie—”
“A horrible mixture of mutton-chops, apples, onions, and fat bacon!—Most abominable!—the stench was enough to have defeated an army of civilized beings. In fact, the dinner given by Peregrine Pickle's friend, the physician, in imitation of the ancients—”
“The ancients fed well,” observed Reginald; “Heliogabalus—”
“Was a nincompoop to Queen Elizabeth's cook,” added Sir Waldron, rather warmly; “whose mistress was served with fine natural meat and drink—”
“Such as muggot, squab, and parsley-pies, I suppose,” quoth Archibald.
“The appetites of the Romans,” continued Sir Waldron, “were, in latter times, depraved; and so is my brother Archibald's. Smollett very justly ridicules the feasts of the ancients, in that passage of Peregrine Pickle, where—”
“Really, brother Waldron,” interrupted Reginald, while a slight blush tinged his cheek, “I must entreat of you to pass on to some other subject; you know we never agree on this: if I have a failing—if, said I?—I meant, that, among my numerous failings, that of being slightly irritable, when the glorious masters of the world are attacked, by one who cannot appreciate them, is, I am sorry to say, very conspicuous.”
“Exceedingly so, Reginald,” replied Sir Waldron; “and if I have a virtue in the world—I beg pardon—among my numerous virtues, that of standing forth, manfully, for the customs of old England, and defending its literature against any man who presumes to set up the cold, classical, marbly stuff of the Greeks or Romans, in preference, is, certainly, I am proud to say, most paramount.”
“Pindarum quisquis studet emulari, brother Waldron,” exclaimed Reginald; but he was cut short, in his intended quotation, by Archibald, who said, “And if I plume myself on any merit of mine,—except, from my boyhood, always having balanced to a fraction,—it is on that of preferring a good carpet to a sanded floor; a Hoby's boot to a hob-shoe; a tooth by Ruspini, to fill up a gap made by time, to no tooth at all; a calf by Sheldrake, to make my left match with my right, to an odd pair of legs; a good dinner of fish, flesh, and fowl, at Guff's, or the Albion, or in my own dining-room, to muggot, parsley, or squab pies, in Devonshire; a glass of claret to poor pinch-throat cider; punch to such filthy messes as buttered ale (hot ale with sugar, butter and rum!) or meaty-drinky (ale made thick with flour!); and the company of two or three intelligent men over a bottle or a bowl, to all the famous authors, from Homer downwards, Greek, Roman, and English; not one of whose works I ever found half so useful as the Tables of Interest, Patterson's Roads, or the London Directory.”
This speech by no means raised Archibald in the estimation of either of his brothers. Sir Waldron thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and began whistling “Lillibullero.” Reginald sighed, and said to the man of business, in rather a doleful tone, “But, surely, brother, you have not forgotten your Horace; we were class-fellows together; you cannot be blind to the beauties of those illustrious names—”