We met at five o'clock--_sharp_--and very sharp. Not a man was missing when the clock of the Inner Temple struck the last stroke. Jack Ginger had done everything to admiration. Nothing could be more splendid than his turn-out. He had superintended the cooking himself of every individual dish with his own eyes--or rather eye--he having but one, the other having been lost in a skirmish when he was midshipman on board a pirate in the Brazilian service. "Ah!" said Jack, often and often, "these were my honest days. Gad! did I ever think when I was a pirate that I was at the end to turn rogue, and study the law!"--All was accurate to the utmost degree. The tablecloth, to be sure, was not exactly white, but it had been washed last week, and the collection of the plates was miscellaneous, exhibiting several of the choicest patterns of delf. We were not of the silver-fork school of poetry, but steel is not to be despised. If the table was somewhat rickety, the inequality in the legs was supplied by clapping a volume of Vesey under the short one. As for the chairs--but why weary about details? Chairs being made to be sat upon, it is sufficient to say that they answered their purposes; and whether they had backs or not--whether they were cane-bottomed, or hair-bottomed, or rush-bottomed, is nothing to the present inquiry.
Jack's habits of discipline made him punctual, and dinner was on the table in less than three minutes after five. Down we sate, hungry as hunters and eager for the prey.
"Is there a parson in company?" said Jack Ginger, from the head of the table.
"Then, thank God," said Jack, and proceeded, after this pious grace, to distribute the cod's head and shoulders to the hungry multitude.
The history of that cod's head and shoulders would occupy but little space to write. Its flakes, like the snow-flakes on a river, were for one moment bright, then gone for ever; it perished unpitiably. "Bring hither," said Jack, with a firm voice, "the leg of pork." It appeared, but soon to disappear again. Not a man of the company but showed his abhorrence of the Judaical practice of abstaining from the flesh of swine. Equally clear in a few moments was it that we were truly British in our devotion to beef. The sirloin was impartially destroyed on both sides, upper and under. Dire was the clatter of the knives, but deep the silence of the guests. Jerry Gallagher, Jack's valet-de-chambre, footman, cook, clerk, shoeblack, aide-de-camp, scout, confidant, dun-chaser, bum-defyer, and many other offices _in commendam_, toiled like a hero. He covered himself with glory and gravy every moment. In a short time a vociferation arose for fluid, and the half-and-half--Whitbread quartered upon Chamyton--beautiful heraldry!--was inhaled with the most savage satisfaction.