At six, the man with the wine came from Binney and Latham's. At a quarter past six, Timmins himself arrived.
At half past six he might have been heard shouting out for his varnished boots but we know where THOSE had been hidden—and for his dressing things; but Mrs. Gashleigh had put them away.
As in his vain inquiries for these articles he stood shouting, “Nurse! Buttons! Rosa my dear!” and the most fearful execrations up and down the stairs, Mr. Truncheon came out on him.
“Egscuse me, sir,” says he, “but it's impawsable. We can't dine twenty at that table—not if you set 'em out awinder, we can't.”
“What's to be done?” asked Fitzroy, in an agony; “they've all said they'd come.”
“Can't do it,” said the other; “with two top and bottom—and your table is as narrow as a bench—we can't hold more than heighteen, and then each person's helbows will be into his neighbor's cheer.”
“Rosa! Mrs. Gashleigh!” cried out Timmins, “come down and speak to this gentl—this—”
“Truncheon, sir,” said the man.
The women descended from the drawing-room. “Look and see, ladies,” he said, inducting them into the dining-room: “there's the room, there's the table laid for heighteen, and I defy you to squeege in more.”
“One person in a party always fails,” said Mrs. Gashleigh, getting alarmed.