MR. JORROCKS’S DINNER PARTY

THE general postman had given the final flourish to his bell, and the muffin-girl had just begun to tinkle hers, when a capacious yellow hackney-coach, with a faded scarlet hammer-cloth, was seen jolting down Great Coram Street, and pulling up at Mr. Jorrocks’s door.

Before Jarvey had time to apply his hand to the area bell, after giving the usual three knocks and a half to the brass lion’s head on the door, it was opened by the boy Benjamin in new drab coat, with a blue collar, and white sugar-loaf buttons, drab waistcoat, and black velveteen breeches, with well-darned white cotton stockings.

The knock drew Mr. Jorrocks from his dining-room, where he had been acting the part of butler, for which purpose he had put off his coat and appeared in his shirt sleeves, dressed in nankeen shorts, white gauze silk stockings, white neckcloth, and white waistcoat, with a frill as large as a hand-saw. Handing the bottle and cork-screw to Betsy, he shuffled himself into a smart new blue saxony coat with velvet collar and metal buttons, and advanced into the passage to greet the arrivers.

‘O gentlemen, gentlemen,’ exclaimed he, ‘I’m so ’appy to see you—so werry ’appy you carn’t think,’ holding out both hands to the foremost, who happened to be Nimrod; ‘this is werry kind of you, for I declare it’s six to a minute. ’Ow are you, Mr. Nimrod? Most proud to see you at my humble crib. Well, Stubbs, my boy, ’ow do you do? Never knew you late in life,’ giving him a hearty slap on the back. ‘Mr. Spiers, I’m werry ’appy to see you. You are just what a sporting publisher ought to be—punctuality itself. Now, gentlemen, dispose of your tiles, and come upstairs to Mrs. J., and let’s get you introduced.’

‘I fear we are late, Mr. Jorrocks,’ observed Nimrod, advancing past the staircase end to hang up his hat on a line of pegs against the wall.

‘Not a bit of it,’ replied Mr. Jorrocks— ‘not a bit of it—quite the contrary—you are the first, in fact!’

‘Indeed!’ replied Nimrod, eyeing a table full of hats by where he stood—‘why, here are as many hats as would set up a shop. I really thought I’d got into Beaver (Belvoir) Castle by mistake!’

‘Haw! haw! haw! werry good, Mr. H’Apperley, werry good indeed.—I owes you one.’

‘I thought it was a Castor-Oil Mill,’ rejoined Mr. Spiers.

‘Haw! haw! haw! werry good, Mr. Spiers, werry good indeed,—owes you one also,—but I see what you’re driving at. You think these ’ats have a cocoanut apiece belonging to them upstairs. No such thing, I assure you; no such thing. The fact is, they are what I’ve won at warious times of the members of our ’unt; and as I’ve got you great sporting coves dining with me, I’m going to set them out on my sideboard, just as racing gents exhibit their gold and silver cups, you know. Binjimin! I say, Binjimin, you blackguard,’ holloaing down the kitchen stairs, ‘Why don’t you set out the castors as I told you? and see you brush them well!’ ‘Coming, sir, coming, sir,’ replied Benjamin from below, who at that moment was busily engaged, taking advantage of Betsy’s absence, in scooping marmalade out of a pot with his thumb. ‘There’s a good lot of them,’ said Mr. Jorrocks, resuming the conversation, ‘four, six, eight, ten, twelve, thirteen,—all trophies of sporting prowess. Real good hats. None o’ your nasty gossamers, or dog-hair ones. There’s a tile!’ said he, balancing a nice new white one with green rims on the top of his finger. ‘I won that in a most miraculous manner.— A most wonderful way, in fact. I was driving to Croydon one morning in my four-wheeled one-’oss chay, and just as I got to Lilley-white, the blacksmith’s, below Brixton Hill, they had thrown up a drain—a gulph I may call it —across the road for the purpose of repairing the gaspipe. I was rayther late as it was, for our ’ounds are werry punctual, and there was nothing for me but either to go a mile and a half about, or drive slap over the gulph. Well, I looked at it, and the more I looked at it the less I liked it; but just as I was thinking I had seen enough of it, and was going to turn away, up tools Timothy Trueman in his buggy, and he, too, began to crane and look into the abyss—and a terrible place it was, I assure you—quite frightful, and he liked it no better than myself. Seeing this, I takes courage, and said, “Why, Tim, your ’oss will do it!” “Thank’e, Mr. J.,” said he, “I’ll follow you.” “Then,” said I, “if you’ll change wehicles”—for, mind ye, I had no notion of damaging my own—“I’ll bet you a hat I gets over.” “Done,” said he, and out he got, so I takes his ’oss by the head, looses the bearing-rein, and, leading him quietly up to the place and letting him have a look at it, gave him a whack over the back, and over he went, gig and all, as clever as could be!’

Stubbs. Well done, Mr. J., you are really a most wonderful man! You have the most extraordinary adventures of any man breathing—but what did you do with your own machine?

Jorrocks. Oh! you see, I just turned round to Binjimin, who was with me, and said, ‘You may go home,’ and, getting into Timothy’s buggy, I had my ride for nothing, and the hat into the bargain. A nice hat it is too—regular beaver—a guinea’s worth at least. All true what I’ve told you, isn’t it, Binjimin?

‘Quite!’ replied Benjamin, putting his thumb to his nose, and spreading his fingers like a fan as he slunk behind his master.

‘But come, gentlemen,’ resumed Mr. Jorrocks, ‘let’s be after getting upstairs. Binjimin, announce the gentlemen as your missis taught you. Open the door with your left hand, and stretch the right towards her, to let the company see the point to make up to.’

The party ascended the stairs one at a time, for the flight is narrow and rather abrupt, and Benjamin, obeying his worthy master’s injunctions, threw open the front drawing-room door, and discovers Mrs. Jorrocks sitting in state at a round table, with annuals and albums spread at orthodox distances around. The possession of this room had long been a bone of contention between Mr. Jorrocks and his spouse, but at length they had accommodated matters, by Mr. Jorrocks gaining undivided possession of the back drawing-room (communicating by folding-doors), with the run of the front one equally with Mrs. Jorrocks on non-company days. A glance, however, showed which was the master’s and which was the mistress’s room. The front one was papered with weeping willows, bending under the weight of ripe cherries on a white ground, and the chair cushions were covered with pea-green cotton velvet with yellow worsted bindings.

The round table was made of rosewood, and there was a ‘what-not’ on the right of the fireplace of similar material, containing a handsomely-bound collection of Sir Walter Scott’s works, in wood. The carpet-pattern consisted of most dashing bouquets of many-coloured flowers, in winding French horns on a very light drab ground, so light, indeed, that Mr. Jorrocks was never allowed to tread upon it except in pumps or slippers. The bell-pulls were made of foxes’ brushes. and in the frame of the looking-glass, above the white marble mantelpiece, were stuck visiting-cards, cards of invitation, thanks for ‘obliging inquiries,’ etc. etc. The hearth-rug exhibited a bright yellow tiger, with pink eyes, on a blue ground, with a flossy green border; and the fender and fire-irons were of shining brass. On the wall, immediately opposite the fireplace, was a portrait of Mrs. Jorrocks before she was married, so unlike her present self that no one would have taken it for her. The back drawing-room, which looked out upon the gravel walk and house-backs beyond, was papered with broad scarlet and green stripes in honour of the Surrey-Hunt uniform, and was set out with s green-covered library table in the centre, with a red morocco hunting chair between it and the window, and several good strong hair-bottomed mahogany chairs around the walls. The table had a very literary air, being strewed with Sporting Magazines, odd numbers of Bell’s Life, pamphlets, and papers of various descriptions, while on a sheet of foolscap on the portfolio were ten lines of an elegy on a giblet pie which had been broken in coming from the baker’s, at which Mr. Jorrocks had been hammering for some time. On the side opposite the fireplace, on a hanging range of mahogany shelves, were ten volumes of Bell’s Life in London, the New Sporting Magazine, bound, gilt, and lettered, the Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, Boxiana, Taplin’s Farriery, Nimrod’s Life of Mytton, and a backgammon board that Mr. Jorrocks had bought by mistake for a History of England.

Mrs. Jorrocks, as we said before, was sitting in state at the far side of the round table, on a worsted-worked ottoman, exhibiting a cock pheasant on a white ground, and was fanning herself with a red-and-white paper fan, and turning over the leaves of an annual. How Mr. Jorrocks happened to marry her, no one could ever divine, for she never was pretty, had very little money, and not even a decent figure to recommend her. It was generally supposed at the time, that his brother Joe and he having had a deadly feud about a bottom piece of muffin, the lady’s friends had talked him into the match, in the hopes of his having a family to leave his money to, instead of bequeathing it to Joe or his children. Certain it is they never were meant for each other; Mr. Jorrocks, as our readers have seen, being all nature and impulse, while Mrs. Jorrocks was all vanity and affectation. To describe her accurately is more than we can pretend to, for she looked so different in different dresses, that Mr. Jorrocks himself sometimes did not recognize her. Her face was round, with a good strong brick-dust sort of complexion, a turn-up nose, eyes that were grey in one light and green in another, and a middling-sized mouth with a double chin below. Mr. Jorrocks used to say that she was ‘warranted’ to him as twelve years younger than himself, but many people supposed the difference of age between them was not so great. Her stature was of the middle height, and she was of one breadth from the shoulders to the heels. She was dressed in a flaming scarlet satin gown, with swan’s down round the top, as also at the arms, and two flounces of the same material round the bottom. Her turban was of green velvet, with a gold fringe, terminating in a bunch over the left side, while a bird of Paradise inclined towards the right. Across her forehead she wore a gold band, with a many-coloured glass butterfly (a present from James Green), and her neck, arms, waist (at least what ought to have been her waist), were hung round and studded with mosaic—gold chains, brooches, rings, buttons, bracelets, etc., looking for all the world like a portable pawn-broker’s shop or the lump of beef that Sinbad the Sailor threw into the Valley of Diamonds. In the right of a gold band round her middle, was an immense gold watch, with a bunch of mosaic seals appended to a massive chain of the same material; and a large miniature of Mr. Jorrocks when he was a young man, with his hair stiffly curled, occupied a place on her left side. On her right arm dangled a green velvet bag, with a gold cord, out of which one of Mr. Jorrocks’s silk handkerchiefs protruded, while a crumpled, yellowish-white cambric one, with a lace fringe, lay at her side.

On an hour-glass stool, a little behind Mrs. Jorrocks, sat her niece Belinda (Joe Jorrocks’s eldest daughter), a nice laughing pretty girl of sixteen, with languishing blue eyes, brown hair, a nose of the ‘turn-up’ order, beautiful mouth and teeth, a very fair complexion, and a gracefully-moulded figure. She had just left one of the finishing and polishing seminaries in the neighbourhood of Bromley, where, for two hundred a year and upwards, all the teasing accomplishments of life are taught, and Mrs. Jorrocks, in her own mind, had already appropriated her to James Green, while Mr. Jorrocks, on the other hand, had assigned her to Stubbs. Belinda’s dress was simplicity itself; her silken hair hung in shining tresses down her smiling face, confined by a plain tortoise-shell comb behind, and a narrow pink velvet band before. Round her swan-like neck was a plain white cornelian necklace; and her well-washed white muslin frock, confined by a pink sash, flowing behind in a bow, met in simple folds across her swelling bosom. Black sandal shoes confined her fairy feet, and with French cotton stockings completed her toilette. Belinda, though young, was a celebrated eastern beauty, and there was not a butcher’s boy in Whitechapel, from Michael Scales downwards, but what eyed her with delight as she passed along from Shoreditch on her daily walk.

The presentations having been effected, and the heat of the day, the excellence of the house, the cleanliness of Great Coram Street—the usual topics, in short, when people know nothing of each other—having been discussed, our party scattered themselves about the room to await the pleasing announcement of dinner. Mr. Jorrocks, of course, was in attendance upon Nimrod, while Mr. Stubbs made love to Belinda behind Mrs. Jorrocks.

Presently a loud, long-protracted ‘rat-rat-tat-tat-tan, rat-tat-tat-tat-tan,’ at the street door sounded through the house, and Jorrocks, with a slap on his thigh, exclaimed, ‘By Jingo! there’s Green. No man knocks with such wiggorous wiolence as he does. All Great Coram Street and parts adjacent know when he comes. Julius Cæsar himself couldn’t kick up a greater row.’ ‘What Green is it, Green of Rollestone?’ inquired Nimrod, thinking of his Leicestershire friend. ‘No,’ said Mr. Jorrocks, ‘Green of Tooley Street. You’ll have heard of the Greens in the Borough, ’emp, ’op, and ’ide (hemp, hop, and hide) merchants—numerous family, numerous as the ’airs in my vig. This is James Green, jun., whose father, old James Green, jun., verd antique as I calls him, is the son of James Green, sen., who is in the ’emp line, and James is own cousin to young old James Green, sen., whose father is in the ’ide line.’ The remainder of the pedigree was lost by Benjamin throwing open the door and announcing Mr. Green; and Jemmy, who had been exchanging his cloth boots for patent-leather pumps, came bounding upstairs like a racket-ball. ‘My dear Mrs. Jorrocks!’ cried he, swinging through the company to her, ‘I’m delighted to see you looking so well. I declare you are fifty per cent. younger than you were. Belinda, my love, ’ow are you? Jorrocksl my friend, how do ye do?’

‘Thank ye, James,’ said Jorrocks, shaking hands with him most cordially, ‘I’m werry well indeed, and delighted to see you. Now let me present you to Nimrod.’

‘Aye, Nimrod!’ said Green, in his usual flippant style, with a nod of his head, ‘’ow are ye, Nimrod? I’ve heard of you, I think,—Nimrod, Brothers and Co., bottle merchants, Crutched Friars, ain’t it?’

‘No,’ said Jorrocks, in an undertone with a frown, ‘—Mr. H’Apperley Nimrod, the great sporting h’author.’

‘True,’ replied Green, not at all disconcerted, ‘I’ve heard of him—Nimrod—the mighty ’unter before the Lord. Glad to see ye, Nimrod. Stubbs, ’ow are ye?’ nodding to the Yorkshireman, as he jerked himself on to a chair on the other side of Belinda.

As usual, Green was as gay as a peacock. His curly flaxen wig projected over his forehead like the roof of a Swiss cottage, and his pointed gills were supported by a stiff black mohair stock, with a broad front and black frill confined with jet studs down the centre. His coat was light green, with archery buttons, made very wide at the hips, with which he sported a white waistcoat, bright yellow ochre leather trousers, pink silk stockings and patent-leather pumps. In his hand he carried a white silk handkerchief, which smelt most powerfully of musk; and a pair of dirty wristbands drew the eye to sundry dashing rings upon his fingers.

Jonathan Crane, a little long-nosed old city wine merchant, a member of the Surrey Hunt, being announced and presented, Mrs. Jorrocks declared herself faint from the heat of the room, and begged to be excused for a few minutes. Nimrod, all politeness, was about to offer her his arm, but Mr. Jorrocks pulled him back, whispering, ‘Let her go, let her go.’ ‘The fact is,’ said he, in an undertone after she was out of hearing, ‘it’s a way Mrs. J. has when she wants to see that dinner’s all right. You see she’s a terrible highbred woman, being a cross between a gentleman-usher and a lady’s maid, and doesn’t like to be supposed to look after these things, so when she goes, she always pretends to faint. You’ll see her back presently,’ and, just as he spoke, in she came with a half-pint smelling bottle at her nose. Benjamin followed immediately after, and, throwing open the door, proclaimed, in a half-fledged voice, that ‘dinner was sarved,’ upon which the party all started on their legs.

‘Now, Mr. H’Apperley Nimrod,’ cried Jorrocks, ‘you’ll trot Mrs. J. down—according to the book of etiquette, you know, giving her the wall side.¹ Sorry, gentlemen, I haven’t ladies apiece for you, but my sally-manger, as we say in France, is rayther small, besides which I never like to dine more than eight. Stubbs, my boy, Green and you must toss up for Belinda —here’s a halfpenny, and let it be “Newmarket”² if you please. Wot say you? a voman! Stubbs wins! cried Mr. Jorrocks, as the halfpenny fell head downwards. ‘Now, Spiers, couple up with Crane, and James and I will whip into you. But stop, gentlemen!’ cried Mr. Jorrocks, as he reached the top of the stairs, ‘let me make one request—that you von’t eat the windmill you’ll see on the centre of the table. Mrs. Jorrocks has hired it for the evening, of Mr. Farrell, the confectioner, in Lamb’s Conduit Street, and it’s engaged to two or three evening parties after it leaves this.’ ‘Lauk, John! how wulgar you are. What matter can it make to your friends where the windmill comes from!’ exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks in an audible voice from below; Nimrod, with admirable skill, having piloted her down the straits and turns of the staircase. Having squeezed herself between the backs of the chairs and the wall, Mrs. Jorrocks at length reached the head of the table, and with a bump of her body and wave of her hand motioned Nimrod to take the seat on her right. Green then pushed past Belinda and Stubbs, and took the place on Mrs. Jorrocks’s left, so Stubbs, with a dexterous manœuvre, placed himself in the centre of the table, with Belinda between himself and her uncle. Crane and Spiers then filled the vacant places on Nimrod’s side, Mr. Spiers facing Mr. Stubbs.

The dining-room was the breadth of the passage narrower than the front drawing-room, and, as Mr. Jorrocks truly said, was rayther small, but the table being excessively broad, made the room appear less than it was. It was lighted up with spermaceti candles, in silver holders, one at each corner of the table, and there was a lamp in the wall between the red-curtained windows, immediately below a brass nail on which Mr. Jorrocks’s great hunting-whip and a bunch of boot-garters were hung. Two more candles in the hands of bronzed Dianas on the marble mantelpiece lighted up a coloured copy of Barraud’s picture of John Warde, on Blue Ruin; while Mr. Ralph Lambton, on his horse Undertaker, with his hounds and men, occupied a frame on the opposite wall. The old-fashioned cellaret sideboard, against the wall at the end, supported a large bright burning brass lamp, with raised foxes round the rim, whose effulgent rays shed a brilliant halo over eight black hats and two white ones, whereof the four middle ones were decorated with evergreens and foxes’ brushes. The dinner table was crowded, not covered. There was scarcely a square inch of cloth to be seen on any part. In the centre stood a magnificent finely-spun barley sugar windmill, two feet and a half high, with a spacious sugar foundation, with a cart and horses and two or three millers at the door, and a she-miller working a ball dress flounce at a lower window.

The whole dinner, first, second, third, fourth course —everything, in fact, except dessert—was on the table, as we sometimes see it at ordinaries and public dinners. Before both Mr. and Mrs. Jorrocks were two great tureens of mock turtle soup, each capable of holding a gallon, and both full up to the brim. Then there were two sorts of fish; turbot and lobster sauce, and a great salmon. A round of boiled beef and an immense piece of roast occupied the rear of these, ready to march on the disappearance of the fish and soup—and behind the walls formed by the beef of old England, came two dishes of grouse, each dish holding three brace. The side dishes consisted of a calf’s head hashed, a leg of mutton, chickens, ducks, and mountains of vegetables; and round the windmill were plum puddings, tarts, jellies, pies, and puffs.

Behind Mrs. Jorrocks’s chair stood Batsay with a fine brass-headed comb in her hair, and stiff ringlets down her ruddy cheeks. She was dressed in a green silk gown, with a coral necklace, and one of Mr. Jorrocks’s lavender and white coloured silk pocket-handkerchiefs made into an apron. Binjimin stood with the door in his hand, as the saying is, with a towel twisted round his thumb, as though he had cut it.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Jorrocks, casting his eye up the table, as soon as they had all got squeezed and wedged round it, and the dishes were uncovered, ‘you see your dinner, eat whatever you like except the windmill—hope you’ll be able to satisfy nature with what’s on—would have had more, but Mrs. J. is so werry fine, she won’t stand two joints of the same sort on the table.’

Mrs. J. Lauk, John, how can you be so wulgar! Who ever saw two rounds of beef, as you wanted to have? Besides, I’m sure the gentlemen will excuse any little defishency, considering the short notice we have had, and that this is not an elaborate dinner.

Mr. Spiers. I’m sure, ma’am, there’s no defishency at all. Indeed I think there’s as much fish as would serve double the number—and I’m sure you look as if you had your soup ‘on sale or return,’ as we say in the magazine line.

Mr. J. Haw! haw! haw! werry good, Mr. Spiers. I owe you one. Not bad soup though—had it from Birch’s. Let me send you some; and pray lay into it, or I shall think you don’t like it. Mr. H’Apperley, let me send you some—and, gentlemen, let me observe, once for all, that there’s every species of malt liquor under the side-table. Prime stout, from the Marquess Cornwallis, hard by. Also ale, table, and what my friend calls lamentable,—he says because it’s so werry small—but, in truth, because I don’t buy it of him. There’s all sorts of drench, in fact, except water—a thing I never touch—rots one’s shoes, don’t know what it would do with one’s stomach if it was to get there. Mr. Crane, you’re eating nothing. I am quite shocked to see you; you don’t surely live upon h’air? Do help yourself, or you’ll faint from werry famine. Belinda, my love, does the Yorkshireman take care of you? Who’s for some salmon?—bought at Luckey’s, and there’s both Tally-ho and Tantivy sarce to eat with it. Somehow or other I always fancies I rides harder after eating their sarces with fish. Mr. H’Apperley Nimrod, you are the greatest man at table, consequently I axes you to drink wine first, according to the book of etiquette —help yourself, sir. Some of Crane’s particklar hot and strong, real stuff, none of your wan de bones (vin de beaume) or rot-gut French stuff—hope you like it—if you don’t, pray speak your mind freely, now that we have Crane among us. Binjimin, get me some of that duck before Mr. Spiers; a leg and a wing, if you please, sir, and a bit of the breast.

Mr. Spiers. Certainly, sir, certainly. Do you prefer a right or a left wing, sir?

Mr. Jorrocks. Oh, either. I suppose it’s all the same.

Mr. Spiers. Why, no, sir, it’s not exactly all the same; for it happens there is only one remaining, therefore it must be the left one.

Mr. J. (chuckling). Haw! haw! haw! Mr. S., werry good that—werry good, indeed. I owes you two.

‘I’ll trouble you for a little, Mr. Spiers, if you please,’ says Crane, handing his plate round the windmill.

‘I’m sorry, sir, it is all gone,’ replies Mr. Spiers, who had just filled Mr. Jorrocks’s plate; ‘there’s nothing left but the neck,’ holding it up on the fork.

‘Well, send it,’ rejoins Mr. Crane, ‘neck or nothing, you know, Mr. Jorrocks, as we say with the Surrey.’

‘Haw! haw! haw!’ grunts Mr. Jorrocks, who is busy sucking a bone; ‘haw! haw! haw! werry good, Crane, werry good—owes you one. Now, gentlemen,’ added he, casting his eye up the table as he spoke, ‘let me adwise ye, before you attack the grouse, to take the hedge (edge) off your appetites, or else there won’t be enough; and, you know, it does not do to eat the farmer after the gentleman. Let’s see, now—three and three are six, six brace among eight—oh dear, that’s nothing like enough. I wish, Mrs. J., you had followed my adwice, and roasted them all. And now, Binjimin, you’re going to break the windmill with your clumsiness, you little dirty rascal! Why von’t you let Batsay arrange the table? Thank you, Mr. Crane, for your assistance,—your politeness, sir, exceeds your beauty.’ [A barrel organ strikes up before the window, and Jorrocks throws down his knife and fork in an agony.] ‘Oh dear, oh dear, there’s that cursed h’organ again. It’s a regular annihilator. Binjimin, run and kick the fellow’s werry soul out of him. There’s no man suffers so much from music as I do. I wish I had a pocketful of sudden deaths, that I might throw one at every thief of a musicianer that comes up the street. I declare the scoundrel has set all my teeth on edge. Mr. Nimrod, pray take another glass of wine after your roast beef.—Well, with Mrs. J. if you choose, but I’ll join you—always says that you are the werry cleverest man of the day—read all your writings—anny-tommy (anatomy) of gaming, and all. Am a h’author myself, you know—once set to, to write a werry long and elaborate h’article on scent, but after cudgelling my brains, and turning the thing over and over again in my mind, all that I could brew on the subject was that scent was a werry rum thing; nothing rummer than scent, except a woman.’

‘Pray,’ cried Mrs. Jorrocks, her eyes starting as she spoke, ‘don’t let us have any of your low-lifed stable conversation here—you think to show off before the ladies,’ added she, ‘and flatter yourself you talk about what we don’t understand. Now, I’ll be bound to say, with all your fine sporting h’information, you carn’t tell me whether a mule brays or neighs!’

‘Vether a mule brays or neighs?’ repeated Mr. Jorrocks, considering, ‘I’ll lay I can!’

‘Which, then?’ inquired Mrs. Jorrocks.

‘Vy, I should say it brayed.’

‘Mule bray!’ cried Mrs. Jorrocks, clapping her hands with delight, ‘there’s a cockney blockhead for you! It brays, does it?’

Mr. Jorrocks. I meant to say neighed.

‘Ho! ho! ho!’ grinned Mrs. J., ‘neighs, does it? you are a nice man for a fox-’unter—a mule neighs— thought I’d catch you some of these odd days with your wain conceit.’

‘Vy, what does it do, then?’ inquired Mr. Jorrocks, his choler rising as he spoke. ‘I hopes at all ewents he don’t make the ’orrible noise you do.’

‘Why, it screams, you great h’ass!’ rejoined his loving spouse.

A single but very resolute knock at the street door, sounding quite through the house, stopped all further ebullition, and Benjamin, slipping out, held a short conversation with some one in the street, and returned.

‘What’s happened now, Binjimin?’ inquired Mr. Jorrocks, with anxiety on his countenance, as the boy re-entered the room; ‘the ’osses arn’t amiss, I ’ope?’

‘Please, sir, Mr. Farrell’s young man has come for the windmill—he says you’ve had it two hours,’ replied Benjamin.

‘The deuce be with Mr. Farrell’s young man! he does not suppose we can part with the mill before the cloth’s drawn—tell him to mizzle, or I’ll mill him. “Now’s the day and now’s the hour”; who’s for some grouse? Gentlemen, make your game, in fact. But first of all, let’s have a round robin. Pass the wine, gentlemen. What wine do you take, Stubbs?’

‘Why, champagne is good enough for me.’

Mr. Jorrocks. I dare say; but if you wait till you get any here, you will have a long time to stop. Shampain, indeed! had enough of that nonsense abroad— declare you young chaps drink shampain like h’ale. There’s red and wite, port and sherry, in fact; and them as carn’t drink, they must go without.

‘Now for the grouse!’ added he, as the two beefs disappeared, and they took their stations at the top and bottom of the table. ‘Fine birds, to be sure! hope you haven’t burked your appetites, gentlemen, so as not to be able to do justice to them—smell high— werry good—gamey, in fact—Binjimin, take an ’ot plate to Mr. Nimrod—sarve us all round with them.

The grouse being excellent, and cooked to a turn, little execution was done upon the pastry, and the jellies had all melted long before it came to their turn to be eaten. At length, every one, Mr. Jorrocks and all, appeared satisfied, and the noise of knives and forks was succeeded by the din of tongues and the ringing of glasses, as the eaters refreshed themselves with wine or malt liquors. Cheese and biscuit being handed about on plates, according to the Spirit of Etiquette, Binjimin and Batsay at length cleared the table, lifted off the windmill, and removed the cloth. Mr. Jorrocks then delivered himself of a most emphatic grace.

The wine and dessert being placed on the table, the ceremony of drinking healths all round was performed. ‘Your good health, Mrs. J., Belinda, my loove, your good health—wish you a good ’usband.—Nimrod, your good health.—James Green, your good health. Old verd antique’s good health.—Your uncle’s good health.—All the Green family.—Stubbs, your good health.—Spiers, Crane, etc. etc.’ The bottles then pass round three times, on each of which occasions Mrs. Jorrocks makes them pay toll. The fourth time she let them pass; and Jorrocks began to grunt, hem, and haw, and kick the leg of the table, by way of giving her a hint to depart. This caused a dead silence, which at length was broken by the Yorkshireman’s exclaiming, ‘Horrid pause!’

‘Horrid paws!’ vociferated Mrs. J., in a towering rage, ‘so would yours, let me tell you, sir, if you had helped to cook all that dinner:’ and gathering herself up and repeating the word, ‘horrid paws, indeed, I like your imperence,’ she sailed out of the room like an exasperated turkey-cock; her face, from heat, anger, and the quantity she had drunk, being as red as her gown. Indeed, she looked for all the world as if she had been put into a furnace and blown red-hot. Jorrocks having got rid of his ‘worser half,’ as he calls her, let out a reef or two of his acre of white waistcoat, and each man made himself comfortable according to his acceptation of the term. ‘Gentlemen,’ says Jorrocks, ‘ I’ll trouble you to charge your glasses, ’eel-taps off—a bumper toast—no sky-lights, if you please. Crane, pass the wine—you are a regular old stop-bottle—a turnpike gate, in fact. I think you take back hands—gentlemen, are you all charged?—then I’ll give you The Noble Sport of Fox-’Unting! gentlemen, with three times three, and Crane will give the ’ips,—all ready— now, ’ip, ’ip, ’ip, ’uzza, ’uzza, ’uzza,—’ip, ’ip, ’ip, ’uzza, ’uzza, ’uzza,—’ip, ’ip, ’ip, ’uzza, ’uzza, ’uzza—one cheer more, ’uzza!’ After this followed ‘The Merry Harriers,’ then came ‘The Staggers,’ after that ‘The Trigger, and bad luck to Cheetum,’ all bumpers; when Jorrocks, having screwed his courage up to the sticking place, called for another, which being complied with, he rose and delivered himself as follows:—

‘Gentlemen, in rising to propose the toast which I am now about to propose—I feel—I feel—(Yorkshireman —“Very queer?”) J. No, not werry queer, and I’ll trouble you to hold your jaw. (Laughter.) Gentlemen, I say, in rising to propose the toast which I am about to give, I feel—I feel—(Crane—“Werry nervous?”) J. No, not werry nervous, so none of your nonsense; let me alone, I say. I say, in rising to propose the toast which I am about to give, I feel—(Mr. Spiers—“Very foolish?” Nimrod—“Very funny?” Crane—“Werry rum?”) J. No, werry proud of the distinguished honour that has been conferred upon me—conferred upon me —conferred upon me—distinguished honour that has been conferred upon me by the presence, this day, of one of the most distinguished men—distinguished men —by the presence, this day, of one of the most distinguished men and sportsmen—of modern times. (Cheers.) Gentlemen—this is the proudest moment of my life! the eyes of England are upon us! I give you the health of Mr. H’Apperley Nimrod.” (Drunk with three times three.)

When the cheering and dancing of the glasses had somewhat subsided, Nimrod rose and spoke as follows:—

‘Mr. Jorrocks, and Gentlemen,—

‘The handsome manner in which my health has been proposed by our worthy and estimable host, and the flattering reception it has met with from you, merit my warmest acknowledgments. I should, indeed, be unworthy of the land which gave me birth, were I insensible of the honour which has just been done me by so enlightened and distinguished an assembly as the present. My friend, Mr. Jorrocks, has been pleased to designate me as one of the most distinguished sportsmen of the day, a title, however, to which I feel I have little claim; but this I may say that I have portrayed our great national sports in their brightest and most glowing colours, and that on sporting subjects my pen shall yield to none. (Cheers.) I have ever been the decided advocate of manly sports and exercises, not only on account of the health and vigour they inspire, but because I feel that they are the best safeguards of a nation’s energies, and the best protection against luxury, idleness, debauchery, and effeminacy. (Cheers.) The authority of all history informs us, that the energies of countries flourished whilst manly sports have flourished, and decayed as they died away. (Cheers.) What says Juvenal, when speaking of the entry of luxury into Rome?—

And we need only refer to ancient history, and to the writings of Xenophon, Cicero, Horace, or Virgil, for evidence of the value they have all attached to the encouragement of manly, active, and hardy pursuits, and the evils produced by a degenerate and effeminate life on the manners and characters of a people. (Cheers.) Many of the most eminent literary characters of this and of other countries have been ardently attached to field sports; and who that has experienced their beneficial results can doubt that they are the best promoters of the mens sana in corpore sano—the body sound and the understanding clear. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, it is with feelings of no ordinary gratification that I find myself at the social and truly hospitable board of one of the most distinguished ornaments of one of the most celebrated Hunts in this great country, one whose name and fame have reached the four corners of the globe— to find myself after so long an absence from my native land—an estrangement from all that has ever been nearest and dearest to my heart, once again surrounded by those cheerful countenances which so well express the honest, healthful pursuits of their owners. Let us, then,’ added Nimrod, seizing a decanter and pouring himself out a bumper, ‘drink in true Kentish fire, the health and prosperity of that brightest sample of civic sportsmen, the great and renowned John Jorrocks!’

Immense applause followed the conclusion of this speech, during which time the decanters buzzed round the table, and, the glasses being emptied, the company rose, and a full charge of Kentish fire followed; Mr. Jorrocks sitting all the while, looking as uncomfortable as men in his situation generally do.

The cheering having subsided, and the parties having resumed their seats, it was his turn to rise; so, getting on his legs, he essayed to speak, but finding, as many men do, that his ideas deserted him the moment the ‘eyes of England’ were turned upon him, after two or three hitches of his nankeens, and as many hems and haws, he very coolly resumed his seat, and spoke as follows:—

‘Gentlemen, unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I am quite taken aback by this werry unexpected compliment—(cheers) ;—never since I filled the h’ancient and h’onerable h’office of churchwarden in the populous parish of St. Botolph Without, have I experienced a gratification equal to the present. I thank you from the werry bottom of my breeches-pocket. (Applause.) Gentlemen, I’m no h’orator, but I’m a h’onest man. (Cheers.) I should indeed be undeserving the name of a sportsman—undeserving of being a member of that great and justly celebrated ’unt, of which Mr. H’Apperley Nimrod has spun so handsome and flattering a yarn, if I did not feel deeply proud of the compliment you have paid it. It is impossible for me to follow that great sporting scholar fairly over the ridge and furrow of his werry intricate and elegant h’oration, for there are many of those fine gentlemen’s names—French, I presume— that he mentioned, that I never heard of before, and cannot recollect; but if you will allow me to run ’eel a little, I would make a few h’observations on a few of his h’observations. Mr. H’Apperley Nimrod, gentlemen, was pleased to pay a compliment to what he was pleased to call my something ’ospitality. I am extremely obliged to him for it. To be surrounded by one’s friends is in my mind the “A1” of ’uman ’appiness. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, I am most proud of the honour of seeing you all here to-day, and I hope the grub has been to your likin’—(cheers),—if not, I’ll discharge my butcher. On the score of quantity there might be a little deficiency, but I hope the quality was prime. Another time this shall be all remedied. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, I understand those cheers, and I’m flattered by them—I likes ’ospitality! I’m not the man to keep my butter in a ’pike-ticket, or my coals in a quart pot. (Immense cheering.) Gentlemen, these are my sentiments, I leaves the flowers of speech to them as is better acquainted with botany. (Laughter.) I likes plain English, both in eating and talking, and I’m happy to see Mr. H’Apperley Nimrod has not forgot his, and can put up with our homely fare, and do without pantaloon cutlets,³ blankets of woe,⁴ and such like miseries. I hates their ’orse douvers (hors-d’œuvres), their rots, and their poisons (poissons); ’ord rot ’em, they near killed me, and right glad am I to get a glass of old British black strap. And talking of black strap, gentlemen, I call on old Crane, the man what supplies it, to tip us a song. So now I’m finished, and you, Crane, lap up your liquor and begin.’ (Applause.)

Crane was shy—unused to sing in company—nevertheless, if it was the wish of the party, and it would oblige his good customer, Mr. Jorrocks, he would try his hand at a stave or two made by himself⁵ in honour of the immortal Surrey. Having emptied his glass and cleared his windpipe, Crane commenced:—

Chorus.

‘Beautiful! beautiful!’ exclaimed Jorrocks, clapping his hands and stamping as Crane had ceased.

‘Gentlemen, pray charge your glasses—there’s one toast we must drink in a bumper if we ne’er take a bumper again. Mr. Spiers, pray charge your glass— Mr. Stubbs, vy don’t you fill up? Mr. Nimrod, off with your ’eel taps, pray—I’ll give ye the “Surrey ’Unt,” with all my ’art and soul. Crane, my boy, here’s your werry good health, and thanks for your song!’ (All drink the Surrey Hunt and Crane’s good health, with applause, which brings him on his legs with the following speech.)

‘Gentlemen, unaccustomed as I am to public speaking —(laughter)—I beg leave, on behalf of myself and the absent members of the Surrey ’Unt, to return you our own most ’artfelt thanks for the flattering compliment you have just paid us, and to assure you that the esteem and approbation of our fellow-sportsmen is to us the magnum bonum of all earthly ’appiness. (Cheers and laughter.) Gentlemen, I will not trespass longer upon your valuable time, but as you seem to enjoy this wine of my friend Mr. Jorrocks’s, I may just say that I have got some more of the same quality left, at from forty-two to forty-eight shillings a dozen, also some good stout draught port, at ten-and-sixpence a gallon—some ditto werry superior at fifteen; also foreign and British spirits, and Dutch liqueurs, rich and rare.’

The conclusion of the vintner’s address was drowned in shouts of laughter. Mr. Jorrocks then called upon the company in succession for a toast, a song, or a sentiment. Nimrod gave, ‘The Queen⁶ and her Staghounds’; Crane gave, ‘Champagne to our real friends, and real pain to our sham friends’; Green sang, ‘I’d be a Butterfly’; Mr. Stubbs gave, ‘Honest Men and Bonnie Lasses’; and Mr. Spiers, like a patriotic printer, gave ‘The Liberty of the Press,’ which he said was like fox-hunting—‘if we have it not, we die’—all of which Mr. Jorrocks applauded as if he had never heard them before, and drank in bumpers. It was evident that unless tea was speedily announced, he would soon become—

‘O’er the ills of life victorious,’

for he had pocketed his wig, and had been clipping the Queen’s English for some time. After a pause, during which his cheeks twice changed colour, from red to green and back to red, he again called for a bumper toast, which he prefaced with the following speech, or parts of a speech:—

“Gentlemen,—in rising—propose toast about to give—feel werry—feel werry—(Yorkshireman, “Werry muzzy?”) J.—feel werry—(Mr. Spiers, “Werry sick?”) J.—werry—(Crane, “Werry thirsty?”) J.—feel werry —(Nimrod, “Werry wise?”) J.—no; but werry sensible—great compliment—eyes of England upon us— give you the health—Mr. H’Apperley Nimrod—three times three!’

He then attempted to rise for the purpose of marking the time, but his legs deserted his body, and, after two or three lurches, down he went with a tremendous thump under the table. He called first for ‘Batsay,’ then for ‘Binjimin,’ and, game to the last, blurted out, ‘Lift me up!—tie me in my chair!—fill my glass!’

¹‘In your passage from one room to another, offer the lady the wall in going downstairs,’ etc.—Spirit of Etiquette.

²‘We have repeatedly decided that Newmarket is one toss.’— Bell’s Life.

³‘Côtelette en papillote.’

⁴‘Blanquette de veau.’

⁵Crane deceived himself when he said he wrote this song. It was published in the Sporting Magazine before he was a member of the Hunt. It is in honour of the popular sportsman who for a long series of years has hunted Surrey with a patience and keenness worthy of a better country.

⁶To save any pains-taking critic the trouble of remarking that we laid the earlier part of these scenes in the late King’s time, we beg to say that ‘we know it.’