All Served, The Tureen Was Whisked
Away To Ensure Against Further Inroads, And Then Cheon Trundled Round The
Table, Removing
The soup plates, inquiring of each guest in turn if he
found the soup to his liking, and informing all
That lubras were on guard
in the kitchen, lest the station cats should so far forget themselves as
to take an unlawful interest in our dinner.
The soup finished with, Cheon disappeared into the kitchen regions, to
reappear almost immediately at the head of a procession of lubras, each
of whom carried a piece de resistance to the feast: Jimmy's Nellie
leading with the six pullets on one great dish, while Bett-Bett brought
up the rear with the bread sauce. On through a vista of boughs and
mistletoe came the triumphs - how glad we were the way had been made more
worthy of their progress - the lubras, of course, were with them, but we
had eyes only for the triumphs: Those pullets all a-row with plump brown
breasts bursting with impatience to reveal the snowy flesh within;
marching behind them that great sizzling "haunch" of veal, taxing Rosy's
strength to the utmost; then Mine Host's crisply crumbed ham trudging
along, and filling Bertie's Nellie with delight, with its tightly bunched
little wreath of mistletoe usurping the place of the orthodox paper
frill; behind again vegetable dishes two abreast, borne by the lesser
lights of the staff (lids off, of course: none of our glory was to be
hidden under covers); tailing along with the rejected and gravy boats
came laden soup-plates to eke out the supply of vegetable dishes; and,
last of all, that creamy delight of bread sauce, borne sedately and
demurely by Bett-Bett.
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