第37章

DINING-OUT SNOBS

In England Dinner-giving Snobs occupy a very important place in society, and the task of describing them is tremendous.There was a time in my life when the consciousness of having eaten a man's salt rendered me dumb regarding his demerits, and I thought it a wicked act and a breach of hospitality to speak ill of him.

But why should a saddle-of-mutton blind you, or a turbot and lobster-sauce shut your mouth for ever? With advancing age, men see their duties more clearly.I am not to be hoodwinked any longer by a slice of venison, be it ever so fat; and as for being dumb on account of turbot and lobster-sauce----of course I am; good manners ordain that I should be so, until I have swallowed the compound--but not afterwards; directly the victuals are discussed, and John takes away the plate, my tongue begins to wag.Does not yours, if you have a pleasant neighbour?--a lovely creature, say, of some five-and-thirty, whose daughters have not yet quite come out--they are the best talkers.As for your young misses, they are only put about the table to look at--like the flowers in the centre-piece.Their blushing youth and natural modesty preclude them from easy, confidential, conversational ABANDON which forms the delight of the intercourse with their dear mothers.It is to these, if he would prosper in his profession, that the Dining-out Snob should address himself.Suppose you sit next to one of these, how pleasant it is, in the intervals of the banquet, actually to abuse the victuals and the giver of the entertainment! It's twice as PIQUANT to make fun of a man under his very nose.

'What IS a Dinner-giving Snob?' some innocent youth, who is not REPANDU in the world, may ask--or some simple reader who has not the benefits of London experience.

My dear sir, I will show you--not all, for that is impossible--but several kinds of Dinner-giving Snobs.

For instance, suppose you, in the middle rank of life, accustomed to Mutton, roast on Tuesday, cold on Wednesday, hashed on Thursday, &c., with small means and a small establishment, choose to waste the former and set the latter topsy-turvy by giving entertainments unnaturally costly--you come into the Dinner-giving Snob class at once.Suppose you get in cheap-made dishes from the pastrycook's, and hire a couple of greengrocers, or carpet-beaters, to figure as footmen, dismissing honest Molly, who waits on common days, and bedizening your table (ordinarily ornamented with willow-pattern crockery) with twopenny-halfpenny Birmingham plate.

Suppose you pretend to be richer and grander than you ought to be--you are a Dinner-giving Snob.And oh, Itremble to think how many and many a one will read this!

A man who entertains in this way--and, alas, how few do not!--is like a fellow who would borrow his neighbour's coat to make a show in, or a lady who flaunts in the diamonds from next door--a humbug, in a word, and amongst the Snobs he must be set down.

A man who goes out of his natural sphere of society to ask Lords, Generals, Aldermen, and other persons of fashion, but is niggardly of his hospitality towards his own equals, is a Dinner-giving Snob.My dear friend, Jack Tufthunt, for example, knows ONE Lord whom he met at a watering-place: old Lord Mumble, who is as toothless as a three-months-old baby, and as mum as an undertaker, and as dull as--well, we will not particularise.Tufthunt never has a dinner now but you see this solemn old toothless patrician at the right-hand of Mrs.Tufthunt--Tufthunt is a Dinner-giving Snob.

Old Livermore, old Soy, old Chutney, the East Indian Director, old Cutler, the Surgeon, &c.,--that society of old fogies, in fine, who give each other dinners round and round, and dine for the mere purpose of guttling--these, again, are Dinner-giving Snobs.