Punch: Punch (32.1857)

June 13, 1857.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

241

whiff—not of Araby the blest—which had been wafted round the
table as this waiter went upon his business were now explained.

"It was too true. The peccant attendant had been at 'them inions,'
and the accompaniment of that peculiar vegetable fragrance did not
by any means enhance the relish of M. Galantine's Poularde en
Diademe. Even had the bechamel sauce been less floury, the vegetables
that garnished the dish less cold and watery, and the central fowl
more succulent and not so stringy, I don't think I could have enjoyed
the plat, with that waiter handing my plate. But indeed the dinner
was as bad as it was pretentious. The four entrees had all a vague
'.-esemblance, which left it quite a toss up whether you were at any
particular moment engaged on the Vol-au-vent de Foie gras a, la Proven-
^ale, or on the Noix de Veau, demi-gras a la puree de concombres, or the
Epigramme d' Agneau, or the Aiguilettes de petits Poussins a la Ban-
quiere.—(N.B. 1 have corrected Galantine's idiomatic but inaccurate
French.)

" Ail one could swear to was that everything was very greasy and
very cold, with a very strong family likeness in the way of burnt
onions and questionable butter.

"Poor Kotqo, however, revelled in the splendid variety of viands,
and went floundering through the hard names of the ' menew' in the
most reckless manner, in spite of all the winks and warning frowns of
his wife. Luckily Elaunter, who was the only person at table able to I
detect Kotoo's blunders, was too much absorbed in the thought of his I
own embarrassments to pay much attention to our host's indecent
liberties with the Trench language. Pennyboy's Trench was if any-
thing, rather worse than Kotoo's, and as he shared with that gentle-
man the ambition of discussing the cookery, it may be conceived what
work they made of the noble gastronomic tongue between them.

"But it was a weary business, for Walker, with all his generalship,
could not keep his awkward squad up to their work, and there were
the dreariest gaps every now and then in the feeble and flagging con-
versation; and long intervals in the rotation of the food, colder than the
cold dishes ; and flaccid jokes from the Author, more mawkish than the
Pain de Peches au Noyau of the entremets; and anecdotes and smart
things from the Reviewer, meant to be satirical, but falling flatter than
the mock-Sillery on an audience not prepared to receive them. His
sallies were many of them clever enough and ill-natured enough to
have both gone off and hurt people had it been the time and place for
such prandial pyrotechnics: but firing them off here was like thrusting
lighted squibs into a heap of damp sand. And so with long-drawn
circuits of half-cold, ill-cooked dishes, with rounds of indifferent wine,
and a dropping fire of semi-stagnant conversation, the grand dinner
drew its slow length along.

" How hard we all worked, too, to keep the ponderous machine going !
How Kotoo floundered and fagged through the mysteries of the
'menew,' and how Mrs. Kotoo perspired inwardly in mingled awe of
Walker, and disgust at his attendant waiters, and laboured to seem
it home, and used to the style of thing—an old offender, in short, up |
to the ways of the mill, and able to get through the appointed task in
good wind, and without breaking her shins. And how loyally we all
panted and tramped and lifted the weight of our aching feet, and
longed for the time that should allow us to get off the instrument of
torture. I protest neither Pentonville nor Brixton has any punish-
in ent more painful. Like the Pentonville prisoners, too, we went
about our work in masks.

"And yet there are many on the mill for life, and who nave got so
used to the labour that they consider it as the normal state of existence
—beings like Little Dorrit, born in the social Marshalsea,"

THE CUP THAT INEBRIATES AND NOT CHEERS.

" Mr. Punch,

" The Queen's Bench reverses a decision of the Stafford
Bench, which fined a person for selling British wines without a licence.
Iudge Erle, dissentient, held that the nastiness was excisable.
Lord Campbell certainly plays Old Gooseberry with the Current of
>ny convictions, and Gingerly as I should proceed in interfering with
,:rade, his lordship's Raisining does not satisfy me. Whether regarded
as a means of cheating children into the idea that they are drinking
the beverage of adults, or simply as a means of making adults wish,
with wry faces, that they were drinking any other beverage, British
wines should be regarded by the law with the same disfavour that is
bestowed on them by civilised beings. They should be sold, if at all,
by the vendors of antimonial wines, a vintage much preferred by the
discerning, and, instead of no licence to sell them, I would make it
necessary to have a Special Licence, for I am sure they trespass on
the Doctor's commons.

" Yours, indignantly,
" The Docks, Saturday:' " Philoporto."

The Geography op Fashion.—A man may appear extremely
Parisian in London, and yet look like the most confounded Cockney in
Paris.

A THOROUGHLY RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIST.

The Yienna Correspondent of the Times says, that the convention
recently concluded between Russia and Persia was the work of Gene-
ral Tschirkoef's hands, and that the Emperor Alexander is
extremely well satisfied with the diplomacy of that officer. The
success of Tschirkoit in this negotiation with Persia may somewhat
console the Russian Court for the failure which, on the Treaty of
Peace with the Allies, it experienced on attempting the shirk-off style
of diplomacy.

REELECTION TOR THE LOOKING-GLASS.

In reading Le Follei young ladies would do well to have at hand an
English, as well as a French dictionary; as will be evident from the
consideration of t lie following passage on bonnets, from Fashions for
June:—

" For neglige, fancy straw trimmed with taffetas and straw. Coloured straws,
drab, or brown, and a mixture of crinoline and black chenille will be much in
vogue, as they are light, fresh, and coquettish."

The word "coquettish" is one which we should think any young
lady would like to know the meaning of before adopting a style of
bonnet to which that adjective is applicable. The word " coquette/'
whence it is derived, is defined in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary to be—
what a fair reader might consider whether she would like to get herself
taken for by wearing a coquettish bonnet, or a bonnet suitable to the
character of a coquette—"a gay, airy girl; who endeavours to attract
notice." Before she chooses one of the bonnets described as coquettish
she had better ask herself if she really deserves to be thought airy and
gay; and if to attract notice is the object after which she intends to
endeavour.

Misplaced Affection.

Loving Wife. Here, James, see what a good littlewifey I've been in
your absence. Whilst you've been away, amusing yourself, I've
cleaned all your pipes. Look, Sir, I'll be bound you wouldn't know
this Meerschaum again ? It looks nice and clean now, doesn't it ?—
though you can't tell, dear, what a deal of time it took me to take all
the nasty colour and dirt off. I assure you 1 had to scrape it ever so
thick with an oyster knife !

{Poor James looks very disconsolate, and gazing with eyes of abject despair on his
favourite Meerschaum, that had taken him Jive years' hard smoking to
" culotler," turns upon his heel, and 'wipes away a tear!

ASEVERE SACRIFICE.—To be Sold, at a considerable reduction, a
large Quantity of Red Tape, the present owner having more upon his hands
than he knows just at present what to do with. Address to Frederick. Peel, to tie
care of Lord Palmerston, Downing Street.