be filled later on with Cloth of Gold
roses so placed that their rich color and fragrance would reach both
the eyes and the nostrils of his guests, while the rest of the family
silver, brightened to a mirror finish by Todd, was either sent down to
Aunt Jemima to be ready for the special dishes for which the house was
famous, or disposed on the side-board and serving-table for instant use
when required. Easy-chairs were next brought from upstairs--tobacco and
pipes, with wax candles, were arranged on teak-wood trays, and an extra
dozen or so of bubble-blown glasses banked on a convenient shelf. The
banquet room too, for it was late summer, was kept as cool as the season
permitted, the green shutters being closed, thus barring out the heat of
early September--and the same precaution was taken in the dressing-room,
which was to serve as a receptacle for hats and canes.

And Todd as usual was his able assistant. All the darky's training came
into play when his master was giving a dinner: what Madeira to decant,
and what to leave in its jacket of dust, with its waistcoat of a label
unlaundered for half a century; the temperature of the claret; the
exact angle at which the Burgundy must be tilted and when it was to be
opened--and how--especially the "how"--the disturbing of a single grain
of sediment being a capital offence; the final brandies, particularly
that old Peach Brandy hidden in Tom Coston's father's cellar during
the war of 1812, and sent to that gentleman as an especial "mark of my
appreciation to my dear friend and kinsman, St. George Wilmot Temple,"
etc., etc.--all this Todd knew to his finger ends.

For with St. George to dine meant something more than the mere
satisfying of one's hunger. To dine meant to get your elbows next to
your dearest friend--half a dozen or more of your dearest friends, if
possible--to look into their faces, hear them talk, regale them with the
best your purse afforded, and last and best of all to open for them your
rarest wines--wines bred in the open, amid tender, clustering leaves;
wines mellowed by a thousand sunbeams; nurtured, cared for, and put
tenderly to sleep, only to awake years thereafter to warm the hearts and
cheer the souls of those who honored them with their respect and never
degraded them with their debauchery.

As for the dishes themselves--here St. George with Jemima's help was
pastmaster: dishes sizzling hot; dishes warm, and dishes stone cold.
And their several