68 A PIC NIC. 



The company had been invited to meet at the ruins by two 

 o' clock, there to open the solemnities with a sort of meal, which 

 is on the cards of fashionable people expressed by four emphatic 

 French words, signifying that one is expected to eat not with 

 one's fingers only. ** \\ ar to the knife!" was the memorable 

 exclamation of the defenders of Saragossa : *' Breakfast to the 

 furk ! " was the no less determined proposal of Mrs. AUington. 

 Each lady had provided, as directed, one cold dish ; each gentle- 

 man two bottles of wine. Intemperately proportioned feast ! 

 Of course all the usual calamities happened, were lamented, and 

 straightway subsided into jest. There was a remarkable prepon- 

 derance of pigeon pies ; hams were seen, a scarcely less stupendous 

 assemblage, pointing at each other through their paper ruffles, 

 from one end to the other of the table; "every leaf had a 

 tongue," (as a living poet says) ; and there was a ** beggarly 

 account," (as an immortal one says), of countervailing chickens. 

 Salad, salt, and bread, had been forgotten, and all the wine was 

 champaign. But Mrs. AUington had thought of ever)' thing. 

 Deficiencies were allowed to appear only as long as they were 

 voted a good joke, and presently all were repaired from an 

 unexpected depot at the farm ; and honest John's wines had as 

 good a flavour, and were in as great variety and plenty, amougst 

 the ruins as at his own hospitable board at AUington Park. 



While Mrs. AUington was playing the "most kind hostess" to 

 all, all were variously engaged. Many in their own little busi- 

 nesses ; more on the little businesses of others. Some speculating 

 on the largest and solemnest considerations of county politics; 

 many making matches for their neighbours, a few making 

 matches for tliemselves. While at a side table, and happy in 

 their convivial seclusion, sat the colonial judge, with Mr. Docet 

 the tutor and Mr. Proseit the curate, making common cause in 

 a reversionary pigeon pie, with the next presentation of a peregaux 

 in prospect, and an actual incumbency over three long-necked 

 bottles, which stood, unnoticed of the multitude, in a corner. 

 Not far off. Doctor Shudderpool, M. D., smit with the horrid 

 mysteries of the Regent Street Solar Microscope, and solicitous 

 equally for the general health and for his own, was occupied in 

 passing through a process of purification the water of a beauteous 

 spring which bubbled by, and which came improved from Mr. 

 George Robins' smallest-sized patent royal filter, which costs 

 but 1/. 5s., and "renders crystal the worst water, at the rate of 

 twelve gallons per day." Of the other sex, crouching in an 



