My round of presentation was just completed, when the pale figure in light blue livery announced Counsellor Daly and dinner, for both came fortunately together.  Taking the post of honour, Miss Riley’s arm, I followed Tom, who I soon perceived ruled the whole concern, as he led the way with another ancient vestal in black stain and bugles.  The long procession wound its snake-like length down the narrow stair, and into the dining-room, where at last we all got seated; and here let me briefly vindicate the motives of my friend—­should any unkind person be found to impute to his selection of a residence, any base and grovelling passion for gourmandaise, that day’s experience should be an eternal vindication of him.  The soup—­alas! that I should so far prostitute the word; for the black broth of Sparta was mock turtle in comparison—­retired to make way for a mass of beef, whose tenderness I did not question; for it sank beneath the knife of the carver like a feather bed—­the skill of Saladin himself would have failed to divide it.  The fish was a most rebellious pike, and nearly killed every loyal subject at table; and then down the sides were various comestibles of chickens, with azure bosoms, and hams with hides like a rhinoceros; covered dishes of decomposed vegetable matter, called spinach and cabbage; potatoes arrayed in small masses, and browned, resembling those ingenious architectural structures of mud, children raise in the high ways, and call dirt-pies.  Such were the chief constituents of the “feed;” and such, I am bound to confess, waxed beautifully less under the vigorous onslaught of the party.

The conversation soon became both loud and general.  That happy familiarity—­which I had long believed to be the exclusive prerogative of a military mess, where constant daily association sustains the interest of the veriest trifles—­I here found in a perfection I had not anticipated, with this striking difference, that there was no absurd deference to any existing code of etiquette in the conduct of the party generally, each person quizzing his neighbour in the most free and easy style imaginable, and all, evidently from long habit and conventional usage, seeming to enjoy the practice exceedingly.  Thus, droll allusions, good stories, and smart repartees, fell thick as hail, and twice as harmless, which any where else that I had ever heard of, would assuredly have called for more explanations, and perhaps gunpowder, in the morning, than usually are deemed agreeable.  Here, however, they knew better; and though the lawyer quizzed the doctor for never having another patient than the house dog, all of whose arteries he had tied in the course of the winter for practice—­and the doctor retorted as heavily, by showing that the lawyer’s practice had been other than beneficial to those for whom he was concerned—­his one client being found guilty, mainly through his ingenious defence of him; yet they never showed any, the slightest irritation—­on the contrary,