during the dinner-time, waylaying the dishes as they come out, and
fingering the round bumps on the jellies, and the forced-meat balls
in the soup,--nobody, I say, supposes that a dinner at home is
characterized by the horrible ceremony, the foolish makeshifts, the mean
pomp and ostentation which distinguish our banquets on grand field-days.

Such a notion is monstrous. I would as soon think of having my dearest
Bessy sitting opposite me in a turban and bird of paradise, and showing
her jolly mottled arms out of blond sleeves in her famous red satin
gown: ay, or of having Mr. Toole every day, in a white waistcoat, at my
back, shouting, 'Silence FAW the chair!'

Now, if this be the case; if the Brummagem-plate pomp and the
processions of disguised footmen are odious and foolish in everyday
life, why not always? Why should Jones and I, who are in the middle
rank, alter the modes of our being to assume an ECLAT which does not
belong to us--to entertain our friends, who (if we are worth anything
and honest fellows at bottom,) are men of the middle rank too, who are
not in the least deceived by our temporary splendour, and who play off
exactly the same absurd trick upon us when they ask us to dine?

If it be pleasant to dine with your friends, as all persons with good
stomachs and kindly hearts will, I presume, allow it to be, it is better
to dine twice than to dine once. It is impossible for men of small means
to be continually spending five-and-twenty or thirty shillings on each
friend who sits down to their table. People dine for less. I myself have
seen, at my favourite Club (the Senior United Service), His Grace the
Duke of Wellington quite contented with the joint, one-and-three, and
half-pint of sherry, nine; and if his Grace, why not you and I?

This rule I have made, and found the benefit of. Whenever I ask a couple
of Dukes and a Marquis or so to dine with me, I set them down to a piece
of beef, or a leg-of-mutton and trimmings. The grandees thank you for
this simplicity, and appreciate the same. My dear Jones, ask any of
those whom you have the honour of knowing, if such be not the case.

I am far from wishing that their Graces should treat me in a similar
fashion. Splendour is a part of their station, as decent comfort (let us
trust), of yours and mine. Fate has comfortably appointed gold plate for
some, and has bidden others contentedly to wear the willow-pattern. And
being perfectly contented (indeed humbly