transferred to the tables on which
the banquet was spread. Even here there was many an unauthorised
claimant for a place, of whom it was impossible to get quit without
more commotion than the place and food were worth.

CHAPTER XXXVI

Ullathorne Sports--Act I

The trouble in civilized life of entertaining company, as it is called
too generally without much regard to strict veracity, is so great
that it cannot but be matter of wonder that people are so fond of
attempting it. It is difficult to ascertain what is the _quid pro
quo_. If they who give such laborious parties, and who endure such
toil and turmoil in the vain hope of giving them successfully, really
enjoyed the parties given by others, the matter could be understood. A
sense of justice would induce men and women to undergo, in behalf of
others, those miseries which others had undergone in their behalf. But
they all profess that going out is as great a bore as receiving, and
to look at them when they are out, one cannot but believe them.

Entertain! Who shall have sufficient self-assurance, who shall feel
sufficient confidence in his own powers to dare to boast that he can
entertain his company? A clown can sometimes do so, and sometimes
a dancer in short petticoats and stuffed pink legs; occasionally,
perhaps, a singer. But beyond these, success in this art of
entertaining is not often achieved. Young men and girls linking
themselves kind with kind, pairing like birds in spring because
nature wills it, they, after a simple fashion, do entertain each
other. Few others even try.

Ladies, when they open their houses, modestly confessing, it may
be presumed, their own incapacity, mainly trust to wax candles and
upholstery. Gentlemen seem to rely on their white waistcoats. To
these are added, for the delight of the more sensual, champagne and
such good things of the table as fashion allows to be still considered
as comestible. Even in this respect the world is deteriorating. All
the good soups are now tabooed, and at the houses of one's accustomed
friends--small barristers, doctors, government clerks, and such-like
(for we cannot all of us always live as grandees, surrounded by an
elysium of livery servants)--one gets a cold potato handed to one as
a sort of finale to one's slice of mutton. Alas for those happy days
when one could say to one's neighbour, "Jones, shall I give you some
mashed turnip? May I trouble you for a little cabbage?" And then the