410 THE CHATEAU. 



me hear then," said Smith. " No, I won't ; ah ! you can't tell what 

 book I'm reading now." " Cordery, perhaps," said Smith. " No, nor 

 it an't Cordery, neither;" said Master Theodosius Thompson. As 

 Smith had tried the erudition of his partner in this dialogue, to the 

 extent of his own puerile researches, he now began to question him 

 diffusely on more erudite particulars. " Can you tell me who Julius 

 Caesar was?" " The first King of Rome," said the boy, pat. " Good 

 boy !" responded Smith. " And who was Moses ?" " Ah ! we haven't 

 come to that yet ;" said the youthful proficient. " Come, then," said 

 Smith, as he gained courage from the child's enormous ignorance, 

 " then tell me, who was Telemaque ?" " The son of of of " and 

 here he hesitated in his prompting, being somewhat doubtful though 

 retaining a confused remembrance of his school-books " Of Gil Bias," 

 said the cub, guessingly. " Good boy ;" said the instruit. " Oh, yes, 

 madam, I see your little boy has had great justice done him." " Oh ! 

 dear sir, yes ;" said Mrs. Thompson, (t Mr. T. and me is so particular, 

 I think that education is such a blessing !" " Oh, ma'am, its every 

 thing," said Smith ; and this Athenian dialogue would, doubtless, have 

 been much protracted but for the enlivening summons, which announced 

 the readiness of the repast. 



Mr. Blunt's chevaux, as he called them, borrowing from the rich 

 vocabulary of the East, were of that comprehensive character, that they 

 united on the cheapest of all possible plans, the pomposity, discomfort, 

 and confusion of a large repast, administered by a superfluity of inex- 

 perienced attendants. He was a man of too much consequence to seat 

 his friends to three good wholesome dishes, find the service of two well- 

 trained domestics. No ; he must place before them all the mysteries 

 of Comus, and employ an inexpert and careless multitude to give an air 

 of grandeur to his retinue. The conduct of the feast was wholly 

 governed by a Mrs. Simpson, a kind of forward, self-sufficient slam- 

 mikin ; a questionable kind of being, half the friend, a distant relative, 

 and secret confidante of Mrs. Blunt's and worse than all, a person 

 " who had seen better times ;" a character, in short, so conflictingly 

 composed, that it defied the tact of casuistry itself, to treat her on an 

 equable consistent footing, with reference to her duties as a servant, and 

 her claims on friendshipand affinity ; in each of which important characters, 

 the rights of Mrs. Simpson would infallibly rear up, when Mr. Blunt's 

 magnificence required the plain unqualified subordination of an ordinary 

 servant. Blunt's obtrusive hints on any point of cookery, excepting 

 curry, country-captain, and cabobs (which were confined to him by 

 covenant) were met by Mrs. Simpson's asking, whether he or she were 

 the cook? Blunt had but to specify and Mrs. Simpson to perform. 

 He had, on this occasion, consequently launched out into the pride of 

 nomenclature, and proposed a most entrancing series of refection, every 

 article of which, beneath the jealous powers of Mrs. Simpson, was an 

 act of absolute high treason against the soveriegn authority of Beauvil- 

 liers ; so that the carte and the effet, even like the witches of Macbeth, 

 " who kept the word of promise to the ear, but broke it to the hope." 

 Mrs. Simpson's zeal too, which was all show and flurry, was odiously 

 irksome. She looked like Thalestris animating the bands of Tanais, by 

 fiery exhortation and example ; her velocity would sometimes upset a 

 tumbler, or spill the liquid contents of a dish; while the loosened 

 lappets of her cap would, occasionally, flap the nose or cheek of some 



