house.

HASTINGS. Let's see your list of the larder then. I ask it as a
favour. I always match my appetite to my bill of fare.

MARLOW. (To HARDCASTLE, who looks at them with surprise.) Sir, he's
very right, and it's my way too.

HARDCASTLE. Sir, you have a right to command here. Here, Roger,
bring us the bill of fare for to-night's supper: I believe it's drawn
out--Your manner, Mr. Hastings, puts me in mind of my uncle, Colonel
Wallop. It was a saying of his, that no man was sure of his supper
till he had eaten it.

HASTINGS. (Aside.) All upon the high rope! His uncle a colonel! we
shall soon hear of his mother being a justice of the peace. But let's
hear the bill of fare.

MARLOW. (Perusing.) What's here? For the first course; for the
second course; for the dessert. The devil, sir, do you think we have
brought down a whole Joiners' Company, or the corporation of Bedford,
to eat up such a supper? Two or three little things, clean and
comfortable, will do.

HASTINGS. But let's hear it.

MARLOW. (Reading.) For the first course, at the top, a pig and prune
sauce.

HASTINGS. Damn your pig, I say.

MARLOW. And damn your prune sauce, say I.

HARDCASTLE. And yet, gentlemen, to men that are hungry, pig with
prune sauce is very good eating.

MARLOW. At the bottom, a calf's tongue and brains.

HASTINGS. Let your brains be knocked out, my good sir, I don't like
them.

MARLOW. Or you may clap them on a plate by themselves. I do.

HARDCASTLE. (Aside.) Their impudence confounds me. (To them.)
Gentlemen, you are my guests, make what alterations you please. Is
there anything else you wish to retrench or alter, gentlemen?

MARLOW. Item, a pork pie, a boiled rabbit and sausages, a Florentine,
a shaking pudding, and a dish of tiff--taff--taffety cream.

HASTINGS. Confound your made dishes; I shall be as much at a loss in
this house as at a green and yellow dinner at the French ambassador's
table. I'm for plain eating.

HARDCASTLE. I'm sorry, gentlemen, that I have nothing you like, but if
there be anything you have a particular fancy to----

MARLOW. Why, really, sir, your bill of fare is so exquisite, that any
one part of it is full as good as another. Send us what you please.
So much for supper. And now to see that our beds are aired, and
properly taken care of.

HARDCASTLE. I entreat you'll leave that to me. You shall not stir a
step.

MARLOW. Leave that to you! I