Part 52 (1/2)

_A._ I'm all attention.

_B._ Get up a splendid dinner party for their first casual meeting.

Place the company at table.

_A._ Surely you are not going to choke her with the bone of a chicken.

_B._ You surely are about to murder me, as Samson did the Philistines----

_A._ With the jaw-bone of a fas.h.i.+onable novel writer, you mean.

_B._ Exactly. But to proceed:--they are seated at table; can you describe a grand dinner?

_A._ Certainly, I have partaken of more than one.

_B._ Where?

_A._ I once sat down three hundred strong at the Freemasons' Tavern.

_B._ Pshaw! a mere hog feed.

_A._ Well, then, I dined with the late lord mayor.

_B._ Still worse. My dear Ansard, it is however of no consequence.

Nothing is more difficult to attain, yet nothing is more easy to describe, than a good dinner. I was once reading a very fas.h.i.+onable novel by a very fas.h.i.+onable bookseller, for the author is a mere nonent.i.ty, and was very much surprised at the accuracy with which a good dinner was described. The mystery was explained a short time afterwards, when casually taking up Eustache Eude's book in Sams's library, I found, that the author had copied it out exactly from the injunctions of that celebrated gastronome. You can borrow the book.

_A._ Well, we will suppose that done; but I am all anxiety to know what is the danger from which the heroine is to be rescued.

_B._ I will explain. There are two species of existence--that of mere mortal existence, which is of little consequence, provided, like Caesar, the hero and heroine die decently: the other is of much greater consequence, which is fas.h.i.+onable existence. Let them once lose caste in that respect, and they are virtually dead, and one mistake, one oversight, is a death-blow for which there is no remedy, and from which there is no recovery. For instance, we will suppose our heroine to be quite confounded with the appearance of our hero--to have become _distraite, reveuse_--and, in short, to have lost her recollection and presence of mind. She has been a.s.sisted to _fillet de soles_. Say that the only sauce ever taken with them is _au macedoine_--this is offered to her, and, at the same time, another, which to eat with the above dish would be unheard of. In her distraction she is about to take the wrong sauce--actually at the point of ruining herself for ever and committing suicide upon her fas.h.i.+onable existence, while the keen grey eyes of Sir Antinous Antibes, the arbiter of fas.h.i.+on, are fixed upon her. At this awful moment, which is for ever to terminate her fas.h.i.+onable existence, the Honourable Augustus Bouverie, who sits next to her, gently touches her _seduisante_ sleeve--blandly smiling, he whispers to her that the _other_ is the sauce _macedoine_. She perceives her mistake, trembles at her danger, rewards him with a smile, which penetrates into the deepest recesses of his heart, helps herself to the right sauce, darts a look of contemptuous triumph upon Sir Antinous Antibes, and, while she is dipping her sole into the sauce, her soul expands with grat.i.tude and love.

_A._ I see, I see. Many thanks; my heroine is now a fair counterpart of my hero.

”Ah, sure a pair were never seen, So justly form'd to meet by nature.”

_B._ And now I'll give you another hint, since you appear grateful. It is a species of claptrap in a novel, which always takes--to wit, a rich old uncle or misanthrope, who, at the very time that he is bitterly offended and disgusted with the hero, who is in awkward circ.u.mstances, pulls out a pocket-book and counts down, say fifteen or twenty thousand pounds in bank notes, to relieve him from his difficulties. An old coat and monosyllables will increase the interest.

_A._ True (_sighing._) Alas! there are no such uncles in real life; I wish there were.

_B._ I beg your pardon; I know no time in which _my uncle_ forks out more bank notes than at the present.

_A._ Yes, but it is for value, or more than value, received.

_B._ That I grant; but I'm afraid it is the only _uncle_ left now; except in a fas.h.i.+onable novel. But you comprehend the value of this new auxiliary.

_A._ Nothing can be better. Barnstaple, you are really----, but I say no more. If a truly great man cannot be flattered with delicacy, it must not be attempted at all; silence then becomes the best tribute. Your advice proves you to be truly great. I am _silent_, therefore you understand the full force of the oratory of my thanks.

_B._ (_bowing._) Well, Ansard, you have found out the cheapest way of paying off your bills of grat.i.tude I ever heard of. ”Poor, even in thanks,” was well said by Shakespeare; but you, it appears, are rich, in having nothing at all wherewith to pay. If you could transfer the same doctrine to your tradesmen, you need not write novels.

_A._ Alas! my dear fellow, mine is not yet written. There is one important feature, nay, the most important feature of all--the style of language, the diction--on that, Barnstaple, you have not yet doctrinated.