A gentleman who stood by turned round and watched the countenance of the
speaker. "That is not a common boy, I am certain," he observed to a
friend. "He is capable of doing much in the world, and I suspect will
do it."

Ellis could not help hearing the last remark, and it gave him great
encouragement.

Now came the time to prepare for the rural banquet. It was great fun
unpacking the hampers, and carrying their contents to the tablecloths
which had been spread on the grass. What number of chicken-pies, and
veal-pies, and rounds of beef, and hams and tongues, and cold chickens
and veal, and fruit-tarts and pies, and cakes of all shapes and sorts,
and what heaps of fruit, strawberries and gooseberries, and currants and
raspberries! indeed there was no lack of anything; and what was most
wonderful, nothing was forgotten, and there was a fair proportion of
each joint or dish. I have been at a pic-nic where, from want of a
preconcerted plan, everybody brought veal-pies, or chicken-pies, or
hams, and there was no bread, or salt, or mustard. Somebody had a
French horn or cornopean, and at its sound people came trotting pretty
quickly in from all directions through the woodland glades and up the
avenues leading from the ruins, or bypaths coming from the side of the
stream. The long drive and the exercise they had since taken had given
them good appetites, and none lingered behind. The boys, especially,
were in good time, and in the course of a few minutes everybody was
seated in every possible attitude convenient for carrying food down
their throats. Not that anybody sat quiet many minutes together.
Somebody was always jumping up to help somebody else, or to go in search
of some tongue for their chicken, or some chicken for their tongue, or
for a glass of ale or wine, or for a piece of bread, or for some mustard
or salt; indeed it seemed wonderful how many things were wanted to make
out a dinner which are procured with so much ease in a dining-room, as
things of course, that no one ever thinks about them. In this way the
first course lasted a long time. Just at the end of it the servants
brought some dishes of hot potatoes, which had been cooked gipsy
fashion, and then several people began again for the sake of eating
them. The tarts and fruit-pies were very good, but the juice of some
had run out, and one or two had been tumbled into, and Tom Bouldon, in
jumping across the tablecloth, had stepped exactly into th