The dinner itself was decidedly bad, and the company undoubtedly dull. I am inclined to think that every individual there would have dined more comfortably at home. A horrid mess concocted of old gravy, catsup, and bad wine was distributed under the name of soup. Then there came upon the table half a huge hake—the very worst fish that swims, a fish with which Devonshire is peculiarly invested. Some hard dark brown mysterious balls were handed round, which on being opened with a knife were found to contain sausage-meat, very greasy and by no means cooked through. Even the dura ilia of the liberal electors of Baslehurst declined to make acquaintance with these dainties. After that came the dinner, consisting of a piece of roast beef very raw, and a leg of parboiled mutton, absolutely blue in its state of rawness. When the gory mess was seen which displayed itself on the first incision made into these lumps of meat, the vice-president and one or two of his friends spoke out aloud. That hard and greasy sausage-meat might have been all right for anything they knew to the contrary, and the soup they had swallowed without complaint. But they did know what should be the state of a joint of meat when brought to the table, and therefore they spoke out in their anger. Tappitt himself said nothing that was intended to be carried beyond the waiter, seeing that beer from his own brewery was consumed in the tap of the Dragon; but the vice-president was a hardware dealer with whom the Dragon had but small connection of trade, and he sent terrible messages down to the landlady, threatening her with the Blue Boar, the Mitre, and even with that nasty little pothouse the Chequers. “What is it they expects for their three-and-sixpence?” said the landlady, in her wrath; for it must be understood that Sharpit knew well that he was dealing with one who understood the value of money, and that he did not feel quite sure of passing the dinner in Mr. Hart’s bill. Then came a pie with crust an inch thick, which nobody could eat, and a cabinet pudding, so called, full of lumps of suet. I venture to assert that each liberal elector there would have got a better dinner at home, and would have been served with greater comfort; but a public dinner at an inn is the recognized relaxation of a middle-class Englishman in the provinces. Did he not attend such banquets his neighbours would conceive him to be constrained by domestic tyranny. Others go to them, and therefore he goes also. He is bored frightfully by every speech to which he listens. He is driven to the lowest depths of dismay by every speech which he is called upon to make. He is thoroughly disgusted when he is called on to make no speech. He has no point of sympathy with the neighbours between whom he sits. The wine is bad. The hot water is brought to him cold. His seat is hard and crowded. No attempt is made at the pleasures of conversation. He is continually called upon to stand up that he may pretend to drink a toast in honour of some person or institution for which he cares nothing; for the hero of the evening, as to whom he is probably indifferent; for the church, which perhaps he never enters; the army, which he regards as a hotbed of aristocratic insolence; or for the Queen, whom he reveres and loves by reason of his nature as an Englishman, but against whose fulsome praises as repeated to him ad nauseam in the chairman’s speech his very soul unconsciously revolts. It is all a bore, trouble, ennui, nastiness, and discomfort. But yet he goes again and again—because it is the relaxation natural to an Englishman. The Frenchman who sits for three hours tilted on the hind legs of a little chair with his back against the windowsill of the café, with first a cup of coffee before him and then a glass of sugar and water, is perhaps as much to be pitied as regards his immediate misery; but the liquids which he imbibes are not so injurious to him.
Mr. Tappitt with the eleven other liberal electors of Baslehurst went through the ceremony of their dinner in the usual way. They drank the health of the Queen, and of the volunteers of the county because there was present a podgy little grocer who had enrolled himself in the corps and who was thus enabled to make a speech; and then they drank the health of Mr. Hart, whose ultimate return for the borough they pledged themselves to effect. Having done so much for business, and having thus brought to a conclusion the political work of the evening, they adjourned their meeting to a cosy little parlour near the bar, and then they began to be happy. Some few of the number, including the angry vice-president, who sold hardware, took themselves home to their wives. “Mrs. Tongs keeps him sharp enough by the ears,” said Sharpit, winking to Tappitt. “Come along, old fellow, and we’ll get a drop of something really hot.” Tappitt winked back again and shook his head with an affected laugh; but as he did so he thought of Mrs. T. at home, and the terrible words she had spoken to him;—and at the same moment an idea came across him that Mr. Sharpit was a very dangerous companion.
About half a dozen entered the cosy little parlour, and there they remained for a couple of hours. While sitting in that cosy little parlour they really did enjoy themselves. About nine o’clock they had a bit of the raw beef broiled, and in that guise it was pleasant enough; and the water was hot, and the tobacco was grateful and the stiffness of the evening was gone. The
