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which I should have liked to sacrifice him on the spot; but Pillkington hurried me, as the policemen did our little brougham, to give place to a prodigious fine equipage which followed, with immense gray horses, immense footmen in powder, and driven by a grave coachman in an episcopal wig.

A veteran officer in scarlet, with silver epaulets, and a profuse quantity of bullion and silver lace, descended from this carriage between the two footmen, and was nearly upset by his curling sabre, which had twisted itself between his legs, which were cased in duck trousers very tight, except about the knees (where they bagged quite freely), and with rich long white straps. I thought he must be a great man by the oddness of his uniform.

"Who is the General?" says I, as the old warrior, disentangling himself from his scimitar, entered the outer hall. "Is it the Marquis of Anglesea, or the Rajah of Sarawak?"

I spoke in utter ignorance, as it appeared. "That! Pooh," says Pillkington; "that is Mr. Champignon, M.P., of Whitehall Gardens and Fungus Abbey, Citizen and Bellows-Mender. His uniform is that of a Colonel of the Diddlesex Militia." There was no end to similar mistakes on that day. A venerable man with a blue and gold uniform, and a large crimson sword-belt and brass-scabbarded sabre, passed presently, whom I mistook for a foreign ambassador at the least; whereas I found out that he was only a Billingsgate Commissioner - and a little fellow in a blue livery, which fitted him so badly that I thought he must be one of the hired waiters of the company, who had been put into a coat that didn't belong to him, turned out to be a real right honorable gent, who had been a Minister

once.

I was conducted up stairs by my friend to the gorgeous drawing-room, where the company assembled, and where there was a picture of George IV. I cannot make out what public companies can want with a picture of George IV. A fellow with a gold chain, and in a black suit, such as the lamented Mr. Cooper wore preparatory to execution in the last act of George Barnwell, bawled out our names as we entered the apartment. "If my Eliza could hear that gentleman," thought I, "roaring out the name of Mr. Spec!' in the presence of at least two hundred Earls, Prelates, Judges, and distinguished characters!" It made little impression upon them, however ; and I slunk into the embrasure of a window, and watched the company.

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Every man who came into the room was, of course, ushered

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in with a roar. "His Excellency the Minister of Topinambo!" the usher yelled; and the Minister appeared, bowing and in tights. "Mr. Hoggin! The Right Honorable the Earl of Bareacres! Mr. Snog! Mr. Braddle! Mr. Alderman Moodle! Mr. Justice Bunker! Lieut.-Gen. Sir Roger Bluff! Colonel Tucker! Mr. Tims!" with the same emphasis and mark of admiration for us all as it were. The Warden of the BellowsMenders came forward and made a profusion of bows to the various distinguished guests as they arrived. He, too, was in a court-dress, with a sword and bag. His lady must like so to behold him turning out in arms and ruffles, shaking hands with Ministers, and bowing over his wineglass to their Excellencies the Foreign Ambassadors.

To be in a room with these great people gave me a thousand sensations of joy. Once, I am positive, the Secretary of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office looked at me, and turning round to a noble lord in a red ribbon, evidently asked, "Who is that?" Oh, Eliza, Eliza ! How I wish you had been there! or if not there, in the ladies' gallery in the dining-hall, when the music began, and Mr. Shadrach, Mr. Meshech, and little Jack Oldboy (whom I recollect in the part of Count Almaviva any time these forty years), sang Non nobis, Domine.

more.

But I am advancing matters prematurely. We are not in the grand dining-hall as yet. The crowd grows thicker and thicker, so that you can't see people bow as they enter any The usher in the gold chain roars out name after name: more ambassadors, more generals, more citizens, capitalists, bankers among them Mr. Rowdy, my banker, from whom I shrank guiltily from private financial reasons and, last and greatest of all, "The Right Honorable the Lord Mayor!"

That was a shock, such as I felt on landing at Calais for the first time; on first seeing an Eastern bazaar: on first catching a sight of Mrs. Spec; a new sensation, in a word. Till death I shall remember that surprise. I saw over the heads of the crowd, first a great sword borne up in the air: then a man in a fur cap of the shape of a flower-pot; then I heard the voice shouting the august name the crowd separated. A handsome man with a chain and gown stood before me. It was he. He? What do I say? It was his Lordship. I cared for nothing till

dinner-time after that.

II.

THE glorious company of banqueteers were now pretty well all assembled; and I, for my part, attracted by an irresistible

fascination, pushed nearer and nearer my Lord Mayor, and surveyed him, as the Generals, Lords, Ambassadors, Judges, and other bigwigs rallied round him as their centre, and, being introduced to his Lordship and each other, made themselves the most solemn and graceful bows; as if it had been the object of that General's life to meet that Judge; and as if that Secretary of the Tape and Sealing-wax Office, having achieved at length a presentation to the Lord Mayor, had gained the end of his existence, and might go home, singing a Nunc dimittis. Don Geronimo de Mulligan y Guayaba, Minister of the Republic of Topinambo (and originally descended from an illustrious Irish ancestor, who hewed out with his pickaxe in the Topinambo mines the steps by which his family have ascended to their present eminence), holding his cocked hat with the yellow cockade close over his embroidered coat-tails, conversed with Alderman Codshead, that celebrated Statesman, who was also in tights, with a sword and bag.

Of all the articles of the splendid court-dress of our aristocracy, I think it is those little bags which I admire most. The dear crisp curly little black darlings! They give a gentleman's back an indescribable grace and air of chivalry. They are at once manly, elegant, and useful (being made of sticking-plaster, which can be applied afterwards to heal many a wound of domestic life). They are something extra appended to men, to enable them to appear in the presence of royalty. How vastly the idea of a Court increases in solemnity and grandeur when you think that a man cannot enter it without a tail!

These thoughts passed through my mind, and pleasingly diverted it from all sensations of hunger, while many friends around me were pulling out their watches, looking towards the great dining-room doors, rattling at the lock, (the door gasped open once or twice, and the nose of a functionary on the other side peeped in among us and entreated peace,) and vowing it was scandalous, monstrous, shameful. If you ask an assembly of Englishmen to a feast, and accident or the cook delays it, they show their gratitude in this way. Before the supper-rooms were thrown open at my friend Mrs. Perkins's ball, I recollect Liversage at the door, swearing and growling as if he had met with an injury. So I thought the Bellows-Menders' guests seemed heaving into mutiny, when the great doors burst open in a flood of light, and we rushed, a black streaming crowd, into the gorgeous hall of banquet.

Every man sprang for his place with breathless rapidity. We knew where those places were beforehand; for a cunning

map had been put into the hands of each of us by an officer of the Company, where every plate of this grand festival was numbered, and each gentleman's place was ticketed off. My wife keeps my card still in her album; and my dear eldest boy (who has a fine genius and appetite) will gaze on it for half an hour at a time, whereas he passes by the copies of verses and the flower-pieces with an entire indifference.

The vast hall flames with gas, and is emblazoned all over with the arms of bygone Bellows-Menders. August portraits decorate the walls. The Duke of Kent in scarlet, with a crooked sabre, stared me firmly in the face during the whole entertainment. The Duke of Cumberland, in a hussar uniform, was at my back, and I knew was looking down into my plate. The eyes of those gaunt portraits follow you everywhere. The Prince Regent has been mentioned before. He has his place of honor over the Great Bellows-Mender's chair, and surveys the high table glittering with plate, epergnes, candles, hockglasses, moulds of blancmange stuck over with flowers, gold statues holding up baskets of barley-sugar, and a thousand objects of art. Piles of immense gold cans and salvers rose up in buffets behind this high table; towards which presently, and in a grand procession-the band in the gallery overhead blowing out the Bellows-Menders' march a score of City tradesmen and their famous guests walked solemnly between our rows of tables.

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Grace was said, not by the professional devotees who sang "Non Nobis" at the end of the meal, but by a chaplain somewhere in the room, and the turtle began. Armies of waiters came rushing in with tureens of this broth of the City.

There was a gentleman near us — a very lean old BellowsMender indeed, who had three platefuls. His old hands trembled, and his plate quivered with excitement, as he asked again and again. That old man is not destined to eat much more of the green fat of this life. As he took it, he shook all over like the jelly in the dish opposite to him. He gasped out a quick laugh once or twice to his neighbor, when his two or three old tusks showed, still standing up in those jaws which had swallowed such a deal of calipash. He winked at the waiters,

knowing them from former banquets.

This banquet, which I am describing at Christmas, took place at the end of May. At that time the vegetables called pease were exceedingly scarce, and cost six-and-twenty shillings a quart.

"There are two hundred quarts of pease," said the old fel

low, winking with bloodshot eyes, and a laugh that was perfectly frightful. They were consumed with the fragrant ducks, by those who were inclined: or with the venison, which now came in.

That was a great sight. On a centre table in the hall, on which already stood a cold Baron of Beef— a grotesque piece of meat—a dish as big as a dish in a pantomime, with a little Standard of England stuck into the top of it, as if it were round this we were to rally—on this centre table, six men placed as many huge dishes under cover; and at a given signal the master cook and five assistants in white caps and jackets marched rapidly up to the dish-covers, which being withdrawn, discovered to our sight six haunches, on which the six carvers, taking out six sharp knives from their girdles, began operating.

It was, I say, like something out of a Gothic romance, or a grotesque fairy pantomime. Feudal barons must have dined so five hundred years ago. One of those knives may have been the identical blade which Walworth plunged into Wat Tyler's ribs, and which was afterwards caught up into the City Arms, where it blazes. (Not that any man can seriously believe that Wat Tyler was hurt by the dig of the jolly old Mayor in the red gown and chain, any more than that pantaloon is singed by the great poker, which is always forthcoming at the present season.) Here we were practising the noble custom of the good old times, imitating our glorious forefathers, rallying round our old institutions, like true Britons. These very flagons and platters were in the room before us, ten times as big as any we use or want now-a-days. They served us a gracecup as large as a plate-basket, and at the end they passed us a rosewater dish, into which Pepys might have dipped his napkin. Pepys?what do I say? Richard III., Cœur-de-Lion, Guy of Warwick, Gog and Magog. I don't know how antique the articles are.

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Conversation, rapid and befitting the place and occasion, went on all round. Waiter, where's the turtle-fins?" Gobble, gobble. "Hice Punch or My deary, sir?"

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"Smelts or salmon, Jowler my boy?" Always take cold beef after turtle." - Hobble-gobble. "These year pease have no taste." Hobble-gobbleobble. "Jones, a glass of 'Ock with you? Smith, jine us? Waiter, three 'Ocks. S., mind your manners! There's Mrs. S. a-looking at you from the gallery.”. Hobbleobbl-gobble-gob-gob-gob. A steam of meats, a flare of candles, a rushing to and fro of waiters, a ceaseless clinking of glass and steel, a dizzy mist of gluttony, out of which I see my old

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