Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  “Beg ten thousand pardons for not being here to receive you,” said Duke, intending to be very gracious.

  “Make no apology,” interrupted Mr. Jorrocks; “where there’s ceremony there’s no frindship.”

  “Been bored with justice business all the afternoon,” continued Mr. Muleygrubs; “bailing a bull that was unjustly put in the pound. You are not in the Commission of the Peace, perhaps?”

  “Not I,” replied Mr. Jorrocks carelessly; “never was in any commission, save one, as agent for Twankay’s mexed teas, and a precious commission it was — haw! haw! haw! — lost three ‘underd pund by it, and more. But, however, n’importe, as we say in France. Werry glad to come here to partake o’ your hospitality, — brought my nightcap with me, in course, — a rule o’ mine, that where I dine I sleep, and where I sleep I breakfast. Don’t do to churn one’s dinner up,— ’ow long does’t want to feedin’ time?”

  Mr. Marmaduke was rather posed with his guest’s familiarity. He intended to patronise Mr. Jorrocks, whereas the latter seemed to think himself on a perfect footing of equality. Not in the Commission of the Peace, either! But then Duke didn’t know that Mr. Jorrocks knew about the stays.

  Pulling out a great gold watch, our host asked his wife what time they dined. (Duke included the kitchen department in his magisterial functions.)

  “Half-past six, my dear,” replied his wife, with great humility.

  “Wants twenty minutes to six,” observed Mr. Marmaduke, striking the repeater. “Perhaps you’d like to take something before dinner — sandwich and a glass of sherry?”

  “Never touch lunches,” replied Mr. Jorrocks, disdainfully. “Never know’d a chap good for nothin’ wot did. Wonder you don’t dine at a reasonable hour, though,” added he.

  “Faith, we think half-past six rather early,” replied Mr. Muleygrubs; “seven’s our usual hour — same as my friend Onger’s — but we have some neighbours coming, and made it a little earlier on their account.”

  “Well, it’ll be so much the worse for your grub when it does come.” observed Mr. Jorrocks; “for I’m well-nigh famished as it is. Howsomever that reminds me that I’ve a letter to write; and if you’ll let me ‘ave a peep at your ‘Directory,’” continued he, advancing towards a round table well garnished with gilt-edged books, “I’ll look out the feller’s address, for there’s nothin’ like doin’ things when they’re in one’s mind, and” —

  “‘Directory!’” exclaimed Mr. Muleygrubs, “that’s a ‘Peerage!’”

  “Bother your Peerages!” muttered Mr. Jorrocks, chucking the costly volume down; adding, aloud to himself, “Wot business ha’ you wi’ Peerages, I wonder?”

  Mrs. Muleygrubs looked at our Master with an air of commiseration. She wondered what her husband was making such a fuss about such a man for.

  “Well, now then,” said Mr. Jorrocks, turning short round and buttonholeing his host, while he looked at him as Muleygrubs would at an unwilling witness; “Well, now then, tell me ‘bout the foxes— ‘ave you plenty on ’em?”

  “Plenty!” replied Muleygrubs, with the utmost confidence, for he had just received a very fine dog one from the well-known Mr. Diddler, of Leadenhall Market, who, by dint of stealing back as fast as he supplies, manages to carry on a very extensive business with a very small stock in trade.

  “Plenty!” repeated Muleygrubs, with the same confident tone.

  “That’s good,” said Mr. Jorrocks, winking and poking him in the ribs; “that’s good — for though I’m ‘appy to dine wi’ people, yet still the ‘unt is the real thing I comes for; and I always says to folks wot ask me to stir hup their covers, ‘Now, don’t let us ‘ave any ‘umbug. If you haven’t foxes,’ say I, ‘don’t pretend that you ‘ave, for the truth must out, if my ‘ounds come, and it will only be addin’ the wice o’ falsehood to the himputation o’ selfishness, sayin’ you ‘ave them if you ‘aven’t.’”

  “Just so,” assented Mr. Muleygrubs, congratulating himself on having excused himself from either charge.

  Mr. Jorrocks, having thus broken the ice, proceeded, in a most energetic manner, to give Mr. Muleygrubs his opinions upon a variety of subjects connected with the chase, the breeding and rearing of hounds, the difference of countries, the mischief of too much interference, killing above ground and digging, uncertainty of scent, signs and indications, with a glance at the impositions of keepers, all of which, being Hebrew to Mrs. Muleygrubs, and very nearly Hebrew to her husband, caused her to slink quietly away with her chicks, leaving her husband to the mercy of the “extraordinary man” he had been so indiscreet as invite.

  Poor Mr. Muleygrubs couldn’t get a word in sideways, and was sitting the perfect picture of despair, when rumble, dumble, dumble, dumble, went a great gong, startling Mr. Jorrocks, who thought it was another hurricane.

  “An old-fashioned custom we still preserve,” said Mr. Marmaduke casually, observing Mr. Jorrocks’s astonishment; “that gong was brought by one of my ancestors from the holy wars — shall I show you to your room?”

  “If you please,” said Mr. Jorrocks.

  Our Master, of course, had the state room. It was a large gloomy apartment, with a lofty four-post bed, whose top hangings were made of green silk, and curtains of green moreen.

  “Here’s a fine twopenny ‘ead and farthin’ tail,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, whisking his candle about as he examined it.

  The absence of fire, and the coldness of the apartment holding out little inducement for dallying, Mr. Jorrocks was soon in his blue coat and canaries, and returned to the drawing-room just as the stiff-necked boy announced Mr., Mrs., and Miss Slowan, who were quickly followed by Mr. and Miss De Green, who apologised for the absence of Mrs. De Green, who was suffering under a violent attack of tic-doloreux.

  The Rev. Jacob Jones having combed his hair and changed his shoes in the entrance, announced himself, and Professor Girdlestone, a wandering geologist, having dressed in the house, the party was complete, and Mr. Muleygrubs gave two pulls at the bell, while the party sat staring at each other, or wandering moodily about as people at funerals and set parties generally do.

  “Dinner is sarved!” at length exclaimed the stiff-necked foot-boy, advancing into the centre of the room, extending his right arm like a guide-post. He then wheeled out, and placed himself at the head of a line of servants, formed by the gentleman Mr. Jorrocks had seen in the yard; a square-built old man, in the Muleygrubs livery of a coachman; Mr. De Green’s young man in pepper-and-salt, with black velveteens; and Mr. Slowan’s ditto, in some of his master’s old clothes. These lined the baronial hall, through which the party passed to the dining-room. Muleygrubs (who was now attired in a Serjeant’s coat, with knee-buckled breeches and black silk stockings) offered his arm to Mrs. Slowan, Mr. De Green took Miss Slowan, the Professor paired off with Miss De Green, and Mr. Jorrocks brought up the rear with Mrs. Muleygrubs, leaving Jacob Jones and Mr. Slowan to follow at their leisure. This party of ten was the result of six-and-twenty invitations.

  “Vot, you’ve three o’ these poodered puppies, have you?” observed Mr. Jorrocks, as they passed along the line; adding, “You come it strong!”

  “We can’t do with less,” replied the lady, the cares of dinner strong upon her.

  “Humph! Well, I doesn’t know ‘bout that,” grunted Mr. Jorrocks, forcing his way up the room seizing and settling himself into a chair on his hostess right; “Well, I doesn’t know ‘bout that,” repeated he, arranging his napkin over his legs, “women waiters again the world, say I! I’ll back our Batsay, big and ‘ippy as she is, to beat any two fellers at waitin’.”

  Mrs. Muleygrubs, anxious as she was for the proper arrangement of her guests, caught the purport of the foregoing, and, woman-like, darted a glance of ineffable contempt at our friend.

  Our Master, seeing he was not likely to find a good listener at this interesting moment, proceeded to reconnoitre the room, and make mental observations on the unaccustomed splendour.

  The r
oom was a blaze of light. Countless compos swealed and simmered in massive gilt candelabras, while ground lamps of various forms lighted up the salmon-coloured walls, brightening the countenances of many ancestors, and exposing the dullness of the ill-cleaned plate.

  The party having got shuffled into their places, the Rev. Jacob Jones said an elaborate grace, during which the company stood.

  “I’ll tell you a rum story about grace,” observed Mr. Jorrocks to Mrs. Muleygrubs, as he settled himself into his seat, and spread his napkin over his knees. “It ‘appened at Croydon. The landlord o’ the Grey’ound told a wise waiter, when a Duke axed him a question, always to say Grace. According the Duke o’ Somebody, in changin’ osses, popped his ‘ead out o’ the chay, and inquired wot o’clock it was.— ‘For wot we’re a goin’ to receive the Lord make us truly thankful,’ replied the waiter.”

  Mrs. Muleygrubs either did not understand the story, or was too intent upon other things; at all events, Mr. Jorrocks’s haw! haw! haw! was all that greeted its arrival. — But to dinner.

  There were two soups — at least two plated tureens, one coutaining peasoup, the other mutton-broth. Mr. Jorrocks said he didn’t like the latter, it always reminded him of “a cold in the ‘ead.” The pea-soup he thought werry like oss-gruel; — that he kept to himself.

  “Sherry of My-dearer?” inquired the stiff-necked boy, going round with a decanter in each hand, upsetting the soup-spoons, and dribbling the wine over people’s hands.

  While these were going round, the coachman and Mr. De Green’s boy entered with two dishes of fish. On removing the large plated covers, six pieces of skate and a large haddock made their appearance. Mr. Jorrocks’s countenance fell five-and-twenty per cent., as he would say. He very soon despatched one of the six pieces of skate, and was just done in time to come in for the tail of the haddock.

  “The Duke ‘ill come on badly for fish, I’m thinkin’,” said Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing the empty dishes as they were taken off.

  “Oh, Marmaduke don’t eat fish,” replied Mrs. M.

  “Oh, I doesn’t mean your Duke, but the Duke o’ Rutland,” rejoined Mr. Jorrocks.

  Mrs. Muleygrubs didn’t take.

  “Nothin’ left for Manners, I mean, mum,” explained Mr. Jorrocks, pointing to the empty dish.

  Mrs. Muleygrubs smiled, because she thought she ought, though she did not know why.

  “Sherry or My-dearer,sir?” inquired the stiff-necked boy, going his round as before.

  Mr. Jorrocks asked Mrs. Muleygrubs to take wine, and having satisfied himself that the sherry was bad, he took My-dearer, which was worse.

  “Bad ticket, I fear,” observed Mr. Jorrocks aloud to himself, smacking his lips. “Have ye any swipes?”

  “Sober-water and Seltzer-water,” replied the boy.

  “‘Ang your sober-water!” growled Mr. Jorrocks.

  “Are you a hard rider, Mr. Jorrocks?” now asked his hostess, still thinking anxiously of her dinner.

  “Ardest in England,mum,” replied our friend confidently, muttering aloud to himself, “may say that, for I never goes off the ‘ard road if I can ‘elp it.”

  After a long pause, during which the conversation gradually died out, a kick was heard at the door, which the stiff-necked foot-boy having replied to by opening, the other boy appeared, bearing a tray, followed by all the other flunkeys, each carrying a silver-covered dish.

  “Come that’s more like the thing,” said Mr. Jorrocks aloud to himself, eyeing the procession.

  A large dish was placed under the host’s nose, another under that of Mrs. Muleygrubs.

  “Roast beef and boiled turkey?” said Mr. Jorrocks to himself, half inclined to have a mental bet on the subject. “May be saddle o’mutton and chickens,” continued he, pursuing the speculation.

  Four T. Cox Savory side-dishes, with silver rims and handles, next took places, and two silver-covered china centre dishes completed the arrangement.

  “You’ve lots o’ plate,” observed Mr. Jorrocks to Mrs. Muleygrubs, glancing down the table.

  “Can’t do with less,” replied the lady.

  Stiffneck now proceeded to uncover, followed by his comrade. He began at his master, and, giving the steam-begrimed cover a flourish in the air, favoured his master’s bald head with a hot shower-bath. Under pretence of admiring the pattern, Mr. Jorrocks had taken a peep under the side-dish before him, and seeing boiled turnips, had settled that there was a round of beef at the bottom of the table. Spare ribs presented themselves to view. Mrs. Muleygrubs’s dish held a degenerate turkey, so lean and so lank that it looked as if it had been starved instead of fed. There was a rein-deer tongue under one centre dish, and sausages under the other. Minced veal, forbidding-looking Rissoles, stewed celery, and pigs’ feet occupied the corner dishes.

  “God bless us! what a dinner!” ejaculated Mr. Jorrocks, involuntarily.

  “Game and black-puddings coming, isn’t there, my dear?” inquired Mr. Muleygrubs of his wife.

  “Yes, my dear,” responded his obedient half. “‘Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this most foul, base, and unnattaral,’” muttered Mr. Jorrocks, running his fork through the breast of the unhappy turkey. “Shall I give you a little ding dong?”

  “It’s turkey,” observed the lady.

  “True!” replied Mr. Jorrocks; “ding dong’s French for turkey.”

  “Are yours good hounds, Mr. Jorrocks?” now asked the lady, thinking how awkwardly he was carving.

  “Best goin’, mum!” replied our friend. “Best goin’, mum. The Belvoir may be ‘andsomer, and the Quorn patienter under pressure, but for real tear-im and heat-’im qualities, there are none to compare wi’ mine. They’re the buoys for making the foxes cry Capevi!” added our friend, with a broad grin of delight on his ruddy face.

  “Indeed,” mused the anxious lady to whom our friend’s comparisons were all gibberish.

  “Shall I give anybody any turkey?” asked he, holding nearly half of it up on the fork preparatory to putting it on his own plate. Nobody claimed it, so our friend appropriated it.

  Munch, munch, munch was then the order of the day. Conversation was very dull, and the pop and foam of a solitary bottle of 40s-champagne, handed round much after the manner of liqueur, did little towards promoting it. Mr. Jorrocks was not the only person who wondered “what had set him there.” Mrs. Muleygrubs attempted to relieve her agonies of anxiety by asking occasional questions of her guest.

  “Are yours greyhounds, Mr. Jorrocks?” asked she with the greatest simplicity.

  “No; greyhounds, no: what should put that i’ your ‘ead?” grunted our Master with a frown of disgust; adding, as he knawed away at the stringy drumstick, “wouldn’t take a greyhound in a gift.”

  The turkey being only very so-so, and the rein-deer tongue rather worse, Mr. Jorrocks did not feel disposed to renew his acquaintance with either, and placing his knife and fork resignedly on his plate, determined to take his chance of the future. He remembered that in France the substantials sometimes did not come till late on.

  Stiffneck, seeing his idleness, was presently at him with the dish of mince.

  Mr. Jorrocks eyed it suspiciously, and then stirred the sliced lemon and meat about with the spoon. He thought at first of taking some, then he thought he wouldn’t, then he fixed he wouldn’t. “No,” said he, “no,” motioning it away with his hand, “no, I likes to chew my own meat.”

  The rissoles were then candidates for his custom.

  “Large marbles,” observed Mr. Jorrocks aloud to himself—” large marbles,” repeated he, as he at length succeeded in penetrating the hide of one with a spoon. “Might as well eat lead,” observed he aloud, sending them away too.

  “I often thinks now,” observed he, turning to his hostess, “that it would be a good thing, mum, if folks would ‘gree to give up these stupid make-believe side-dishes, mum, for nobody ever eats them, at least if they do they’re sure to come off second best, for no cuk that ever was f
oaled can do justice to sich a wariety of wittles.”

  “O! but, Mr. Jorrocks, how could you send up a dinner properly without them?” exclaimed the lady with mingled horror and astonishment.

  “Properly without them, mum,” repeated our master, coolly and deliberately; “properly without them, mum — why that’s jest wot I was meanin’,” continued he. “You see your cuk ‘as sich a multitude o’ things to do, that it’s hutterly unpossible for her to send them all in properly, so ‘stead o’ gettin’ a few things well done, ye get a great many only badly done.”

  “Indeed!” fumed the lady, bridling with contempt.

  “The great Duke o’ Wellington — no ‘fence to the present one,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, with a low bow to the table— “who, I’m proud to say gets his tea o’ me too, — the great Duke o’Wellington, mum, used to say, mum, that the reason why one seldom got a hegg well biled was, ‘cause the cuk was always a doin’ summut else at the same time, and that hobservation will apply purty well to most cuking hoperations.”

  “Well, then, you’d have no plate on the table, I presume, Mr. Jorrocks?” observed the irascible lady.

  “Plate on the table, mum — plate on the table, mum,” repeated Mr. Jorrocks, with the same provoking prolixity, “why I really doesn’t know that plate on the table’s of any great use. I minds the time when folks thought four silver side-dishes made gen’lmen on ’em, but since these Brummagem things turned hup, they go for a bit o’ land — land’s the ticket now,” observed our Master.

  While this unpalatable conversation — unpalatable, at least, to our hostess was going on, the first course was being removed, and a large, richly-ornamented cold game-pie made its appearance, which was placed before Mr. Muleygrubs.

  “Large tart!” observed Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing it, thinking if he could help himself he might yet manage to make up his lee-way: “thought there was dark puddins comin’,” observed he to his hostess.

  “Game and black puddings,” replied Mrs. Muleygrubs. “This comes between courses always.”