338 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



our host has the best French cook in London ! " I hear that the 

 Professor's name is never mentioned now by the fair evolutionist And 

 I also learn that Caudal, with a wondrous chuckle, in which possibly 

 a megatherium might have indulged in the days of its youth, is accus- 

 tomed to relate the effectual method whereby he was able at once to 

 silence a talkative neighbour and to ingest his dinner in peace. 



Smith's dinner invitation, and the remembrance of the Caudal 

 episode, have together set one's thoughts flying off at a tangent. 

 Possibly it is the recollection of the professorial frame (which is 

 large and bulky), in relation to the enjoyment of the process of 

 nutrition at Smith's, which has caused me to think of dinners and 

 dining in the abstract rather than in the concrete view of things. 

 Be that as it may, I begin seriously to propound to myself the 

 question, "Why do we eat our dinner?" and I find the reply to the 

 question rather more difficult of solution than at first sight might 

 be supposed. For one thing, it cannot be denied that, if the con- 

 stitution of things human had been somewhat differently ordered, 

 the race might have been spared a considerable deal of trouble, 

 not merely in the work of dining, but primarily in the getting of 

 dinners. To persons like Smith and Caudal, the latter task is of 

 course a comparatively trivial matter. For them, the chief labour 

 is the variation of their menus, and the satisfactory digestive disposal 

 of the nutriment they imbibe. But what is an easy matter to many 

 of us, namely, the finding of food, is a tremendous task to millions 

 of our fellows. We are not yet beyond the possibilities of starvation ; 

 and the Oliver Twist maxim of asking " for more " is an actuality 

 that animates very forcibly indeed the nutritive actions of tens of 

 thousands of our race. There is no touch of cynicism in the idea 

 that were the work of food-getting superseded by some easier pro- 

 cess of sustenance, mankind at large would be saved a vast amount 

 of trouble, and a very considerable portion of misery besides. But 

 human bodies cannot grow like snowballs or stalactites. We cannot 

 add new matter to our outside surfaces, and thus end the process 

 and work of nourishment. Life everywhere is subject to the same 

 rule which regulates humanity's unceasing work of food-getting; 

 and Smith's dinner-invitation is only an additional and precise piece 

 of evidence that, after all, Smith and his guests share the peculi- 

 arities of the animalcules and the special features of the plants. 

 In other words, my dinner party is only a physiological necessity 

 elaborated into a social display. Smith knows I must have my 

 dinner, like the rest of the animate creation, including himself; and 

 he is kind enough to ask me to give him my company in the per- 

 formance of a work which he appropriately enough styles " the great 

 event of the day." 



The question, "Why do we eat our dinner?" is one worth 



