_Billsbury, Sunday, May 25_.--CHORKLE'S dinner came off last night.
The dinner-hour was seven o'clock. CHORKLE'S house is in The Grove, a
sort of avenue of detached houses shaded by trees. The Colonel himself
was magnificent. He wore a most elaborately-frilled shirt-front,
with three massive jewelled studs. His waistcoat was beautifully
embroidered in black with a kind of vine-leaf pattern, the buttons
being of silver, with the regimental badge embossed upon them. His
handkerchief was a gorgeous one of blue silk. He wore it in his
waistcoat, carefully arranged, so as to show all round above the
opening. It looked something like the ribbon of some Order at a
distance. Mrs. CHORKLE is rather a pleasant woman, with a manner which
suggests that she is much trampled on by her domineering husband. How
on earth she ever induced herself to marry him I can't make out. The
chief guests were Sir CHARLES and Lady PENFOLD. Sir CHARLES'S father
was a large Billsbury contractor, who made no end of money, and
represented Billsbury in the House a good many years ago. He was
eventually made a Baronet for his services to the Party. The present
Sir CHARLES doesn't take much interest in politics, occupying himself
chiefly in hunting, &c., but they are people of great consideration in
Billsbury; in fact Lady PENFOLD is the leader of Society in Billsbury,
and not to know them is to argue yourself unknown. Sir CHARLES himself
is an Oxford man, and we had a good deal of talk about the old place.
"Yes," he said, "I was at the House more than thirty years ago, and
to tell you the truth, it's the only House (with a capital H), that I
ever wanted te be in."
The fact of the matter, so JERRAM told me, was that Sir CHARLES did
once want to stand for Parliament, but somehow or other the scheme
fell through, and since then he's always spoken rather bitterly of the
House of Commons. Their daughter, whom I took in to dinner, is a very
pretty girl of nineteen, with plenty to say for herself. She told
me they were going to be in London for about three weeks in June and
July, so I hope to see something of them. Besides the PENFOLDS there
were Mr. and Mrs. TOLLAND; Mrs. TOLLAND in a green silk dress with
more gold chains wound about various parts of her person than I ever
saw on any other woman. Two officers of CHORKLE'S Volunteers were
there with their wives, Major WORBOYS, an enormous, red-whiskered man
who doesn't think much, privately, of CHORKLE'S ability as a soldier,
and Captain YATMAN, a dapper little fellow, whose weakness it is to
pretend to know all about smart Society in London.
Altogether there were twenty guests. Precisely at seven o'clock a
bugle sounded on the landing outside the drawing-room to announce
dinner. Everything in the CHORKLE family is done by bugle-calls.
They have _reveillé_ at 7 A.M., the sergeants' call for the servants'
dinner, and lights out at eleven o'clock every night. As soon as the
call was finished, CHORKLE went up to Lady PENFOLD. "Shall we march,
Lady PENFOLD?" he said. "Sir CHARLES will bring up the rear with Mrs.
C." And thus we went down-stairs.
The dinner was a most tremendous and wonderful entertainment, and must
have lasted two hours, at the very least. There were two soups, three
fishes, dozens of _entrées_, three or four joints--the mere memory of
it is indigestive. The talk was almost entirely about local matters,
the chief subject of discussion being the Mastership of the Foxhounds.
The present Master is not going to keep them on, as he is a very old
man, and everybody seems to want Sir CHARLES to take them, but he
hangs back. Difficulties about the subscription, I fancy.
In the middle of dinner there was a fiendish row outside. I saw poor
Mrs. CHORKLE turn pale, while the Colonel got purple with fury, and
upset his champagne as he turned to say something to the butler.
Discovered afterwards that the disturbance was caused by two of the
young CHORKLES, who had got out of their bedrooms, and were lying in
ambush for the dishes. HOBBES LEVIATHAN CHORKLE had carried off a dish
of sweetbreads, for which STRAFFORD THOROUGH CHORKLE had expressed a
liking. The result was, that HOBBES LEVIATHAN got his head punched by
STRAFFORD THOROUGH, who then rubbed his face with sweetbread.
After dinner there was music, but not a whiff of tobacco.
Mother comes to open the Bazaar on Wednesday.
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[Illustration: ASSISTED EDUCATION BILL.]
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