alternately, like the layers of bread and meat in a plate of sandwiches;
and then Mrs. Tibbs directed James to take off the covers. Salmon,
lobster-sauce, giblet-soup, and the usual accompaniments were discovered:
potatoes like petrifactions, and bits of toasted bread, the shape and
size of blank dice.

'Soup for Mrs. Maplesone, my dear,' said the bustling Mrs. Tibbs. She
always called her husband 'my dear' before company. Tibbs, who had been
eating his bread, and calculating how long it would be before he should
get any fish, helped the soup in a hurry, made a small island on the
table-cloth, and put his glass upon it, to hide it from his wife.

'Miss Julia, shall I assist you to some fish?'

'If you please--very little--oh! plenty, thank you' (a bit about the size
of a walnut put upon the plate).

'Julia is a _very_ little eater,' said Mrs. Maplesone to Mr. Calton.

The knocker gave a single rap. He was busy eating the fish with his
eyes: so he only ejaculated, 'Ah!'

'My dear,' said Mrs. Tibbs to her spouse after every one else had been
helped, 'what do _you_ take?' The inquiry was accompanied with a look
intimating that he mustn't say fish, because there was not much left.
Tibbs thought the frown referred to the island on the table-cloth; he
therefore coolly replied, 'Why--I'll take a little--fish, I think.'

'Did you say fish, my dear?' (another frown).

'Yes, dear,' replied the villain, with an expression of acute hunger
depicted in his countenance. The tears almost started to Mrs. Tibbs's
eyes, as she helped her 'wretch of a husband,' as she inwardly called
him, to the last eatable bit of salmon on the dish.

'James, take this to your master, and take away your master's knife.'
This was deliberate revenge, as Tibbs never could eat fish without one.
He was, however, constrained to chase small particles of salmon round and
round his plate with a piece of bread and a fork, the number of
successful attempts being about one in seventeen.

'Take away, James,' said Mrs. Tibbs, as Tibbs swallowed the fourth
mouthful--and away went the plates like lightning.

'I'll take a bit of bread, James,' said the poor 'master of the house,'
more hungry than ever.

'Never mind your master now, James,' said Mrs. Tibbs, 'see about the
meat.' This was conveyed in the tone in which ladies usually give
admonitions to servants in company, that is to say, a low one; but which,
like a stage whisper, from its peculiar em