To Raikes, at the door of the supper-room, the chairman repeated the same; and with extreme affability and alacrity of abnegation, the other rejoined, ‘Oh, certainly!’

No wonder that he rubbed his hands with more delight than aristocrats and people with gentlemanly connections are in the habit of betraying at the prospect of refection, for the release from bread and cheese was rendered overpoweringly glorious, in his eyes, by the bountiful contrast exhibited on the board before him.

CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH ALE IS SHOWN TO HAVE ONE QUALITY OF WINE

To proclaim that yon ribs of beef and yonder ruddy Britons have met, is to furnish matter for an hour’s comfortable meditation.

Digest the fact.  Here the Fates have put their seal to something Nature clearly devised.  It was intended; and it has come to pass.  A thing has come to pass which we feel to be right!  The machinery of the world, then, is not entirely dislocated:  there is harmony, on one point, among the mysterious powers who have to do with us.

Apart from its eloquent and consoling philosophy, the picture is pleasant.  You see two rows of shoulders resolutely set for action:  heads in divers degrees of proximity to their plates:  eyes variously twinkling, or hypocritically composed:  chaps in vigorous exercise.  Now leans a fellow right back with his whole face to the firmament:  Ale is his adoration.  He sighs not till he sees the end of the mug.  Now from one a laugh is sprung; but, as if too early tapped, he turns off the cock, and primes himself anew.  Occupied by their own requirements, these Britons allow that their neighbours have rights:  no cursing at waste of time is heard when plates have to be passed:  disagreeable, it is still duty.  Field-Marshal Duty, the Briton’s chief star, shines here.  If one usurps more than his allowance of elbow-room, bring your charge against them that fashioned him:  work away to arrive at some compass yourself.

Now the mustard ceases to travel, and the salt:  the guests have leisure to contemplate their achievements.  Laughs are more prolonged, and come from the depths.

Now Ale, which is to Beef what Eve was to Adam, threatens to take possession of the field.  Happy they who, following Nature’s direction, admitted not bright ale into their Paradise till their manhood was strengthened with beef.  Some, impatient, had thirsted; had satisfied their thirst; and the ale, the light though lovely spirit, with nothing to hold it down, had mounted to their heads; just as Eve will do when Adam is not mature:  just as she did—­Alas!

Now, the ruins of the feast being removed, and a clear course left for the flow of ale, Farmer Broadmead, facing the chairman, rises.  He stands in an attitude of midway.  He speaks: