Most people know the story of Foote and Lord Stormont, the latter of whom had asked the former to dinner, and had placed before him wine served in the smallest of decanters and dispensed in the smallest of glasses. The peer enlarged upon the growth and age of the liquor; whereupon the player, holding up one of the glasses, demurely said, 'It is very little of its age!' This recalls an experience of Theodore Hook, when invited to dine with an unnamed nobleman, at the Star and Garter, Richmond. There were four of the party, and when covers were removed it was found that the fare consisted of four loin chops, four mealy potatoes, and a pint of sherry. These things despatched, the peer asked Hook for a song, and the wit responded with, of all things in the world, the National Anthem, which he gave correctly until, arriving at the line 'Happy and glorious,' he added--as if under the influence of drink--'A pint between four of us--God save the King!' A different form of stinginess, it would seem, was shown by Brigham Young, when (if we may believe the tale) he gave as a reason for marrying a certain male-garbed lady-doctor, that he would be able to have her clothes 'made down' for his boys.
The mean host has always been a special target for the scorn of his fellows. It was a Greek satirist who related how
'A miser in his chamber saw a mouse, And cry'd, dismay'd, "What dost thou in my house?" She, with a laugh, "Good landlord, have no fear, 'Tis not for board, but lodging, I came here."'
And since then the flood of banter has rolled on. Herrick complains of an unknown person that he invited him home to eat, and showed him there much plate but little meat. Garrick (who had evidently again forgotten the mote and the beam) wrote of a certain nobleman who had built a big mansion:
'A little house would best accord With you, my very little lord! And then exactly matched would be Your house and hospitality!'
Much in the same way, Richard Graves wrote of the master of a house which was well kept but not open to company:
'If one may judge by rooms so neat, It costs you more in mops than meat!'
Note, again, Egerton Warburton's versification of a remark attributed to Lord Alvanley. A gentleman had drawn attention to the fact that his house was furnished _à la_ Louis Quatorze: