1831.] The Steam-Boat ; a Paper of .mJ/ Uncle's. 285 



of a good square yard of pea-green silk. — " Oh, my gotvncl .'" she cried, 

 " Now, ar'nt I told you, Ercules and Psyche, never to lay nothing down 

 permiscuoiis ?" 



The glorious moment of repast arrived. The dinner was scarcely 

 announced, when a tremendous scream arose — a chorus of distress. It 

 was occasioned by the velocity of the sweet little family of the Gobble- 

 tons, who had rushed, on the utterance of these grateful tidings, to 

 secure themselves the preferable places at the dinner-table — in pursuit of 

 which decorous object they had all come into violent collision at the top 

 of the companion-ladder^ and had settled the contested point of precedence 

 by tumbling down, en masse, to the savoury region of their greedy hopes. 

 A gouty gentleman, unfortunately seated at the bottom, whose feet 

 received this unexpected shower of progeny, bestowed upon the " little 

 dears" a hearty d — n, and hoped their meal might choke them. The 

 lamentations of the Gobbletons were, however, gradually diminished as 

 they ogled the constituent dishes of the dinner ; and eventually, on the 

 uncovering of a pie of the shape and magnitude of the Life-Guards' 

 kettle-drum, the juvenile plorators looked at one another, wiped their 

 eyes and noses with their cuffs, and broke into a roar of ecstacy. 

 Mr. Botherby, who had taken a judicious seat, in the immediate vicinity 

 of a plat piquant, where he could help himself to a sufficiency, by an 

 experienced coup dc main, before, by any possibility, a priority of appli- 

 cation could mar his usual plan, observed, with an accompanying 

 smile — • 



" The tear on childhood's cheek that flows 

 Is Uke the dew-drop on the rose \" 



and looking to a sturdy gentleman, his neighbour, for applause, was met 

 by a grave face — the owner of which, by far more interested in his din- 

 ner than in the lyrics of Sir Walter Scott, replied, " Is that your bread, 

 sir }" putting out a finger like a kidney- potatoe. " I'll thank you for the 

 mustard ;" — and then, holding out his plate — " Some cabbage, with 

 gravy, and no stalk. There ! — there ! — there ! — that'll do. — Some beer, 

 you sir !" 



During the first burst of the attack, the motherly IMrs. Gobbleton was 

 assiduously occupied in guarding the attire of her keen progeny from 

 the danger threatened to their Sunday suits, by the usual defence of 

 pin-befores ; but the restive anxiety of the little gourmands rendered 

 the office, in which she was engaged, as irksome as the bridling of a 

 colt who sees some corn before him. When ' the loves' were muffled 

 to the chin, in their brown-hoUand, the kind mother drew from her com- 

 panion-basket a tablicr ! tout a fait a la Franqoise, in black calico ; 



•which should it descend to heirs hereafter — certain of the Old Buck 



family will prove, with all the truth and perspicuity of antiquarian 

 erudition, to have been the fatal sail which bore the ungrateful Theseus 

 to the Attic shore. Thus arrayed, the mother of the cormorants as- 

 sumed the centre of her rank of issue, who played away on either hand 

 with desperate velocity, and seemed to be so many hungry emanations 

 of the heathen principle of plenty; each, enviously looking at the others' 

 plates, to see who had the most. 



Nothing could surpass the scene of unsophisticated greediness and 

 fantastic affectation of the company. Miss Biddlecombe, and all her 

 fasiiionable clique, were unacquainted with tlie vulgar joints, so grossly 



