"Oh, up at my place, you know--Beadle Square," I said.
At this Doubleday fairly laughed.
"Supper at your place at Black Beadle Square? Oh, rather! I'll come.
You'll come too, Crow, eh? The young un's got a supper on on Thursday.
Oh, rather. Put me down for that, old man."
Could anything have been more mortifying? Most invitations are received
politely and graciously. What there was to laugh at about mine I
couldn't understand.
"Oh, yes, Crow's coming," I said, meekly. "At least I hope so."
"Oh, rather!" said Crow, beaming. "I wouldn't miss it for a lot. Is it
evening dress or what?"
I was too much disconcerted and crestfallen to answer the question, and
avoided my two prospective guests for the rest of the day.
Already I was half repenting my venture. But there was no drawing back
now. Letters or messages came from the rest of the "usual lot"--the
Twins, Flanagan, the Field-Marshal, Daly, and Whipcord, every one of
them saying they'd be there. Yes, there was nothing left but to go
through with it.
The next two days were two of the most anxious days I ever spent. I was
running about all one afternoon (when I ought to have been delivering
bills of lading), inquiring the prices of lobsters, pork-pies, oranges,
and other delicacies, arranging for the hire of cups and saucers,
ordering butter and eggs, and jam, and other such arduous and delicate
duties. Then I spent the evening in discussing with myself the
momentous questions whether I should lay in tea-cakes or penny buns,
whether I need have brown bread as well as white, whether Mrs Nash's
tea would be good enough, whether I should help my great dish--the eel-
pie--myself, or trust it to one of the company to do.
These and similar momentous matters engaged my thoughts. And it began
to dawn on me further that my financial estimates had been greatly out,
and that my supper would cost me nearer a pound than ten shillings.
Never mind. After all, was I not worth twelve shillings a week? I
needn't trouble about the expense. Besides, the pastrycook had agreed
to give me credit, so that really I should have comparatively little to
pay down.
A far more serious anxiety was Mrs Nash. It required constant and most
assiduous attention to keep her in good temper. And the nearer the time
came the more touchy she got. If I suggested anything, she took it as a
personal slight to herself; if I was bold enough to differ from her, she
was mortally offended; if I ventured to express the slightest
impatience, she turned crusty and threatened to let me shift for myself.
The affair, too, naturally got wind amongst my fellow-lodgers, who one
and all avowed that they would not give up their right to the parlour,
and indulged in all manner of witticisms at my cost and the cost of my
party. I pacified them as best I could by promising them the reversion
of the feast, and took meekly all their gibes and jests when they begged
to be allowed to come in to dessert and hear the speeches, or
volunteered to come and hand round the champagne, or clear away the
"turtle-soup," and so on.
But the nearer the fatal day came the more dejected and nervous I got.
Mrs Nash's parlour was really a disreputable sort of room, and after
all I had had no experience of suppers, and was positive I should not
know what to do when the time came. I had neither the flow of
conversation of Doubleday, nor the store of stories of Daly, nor
Whipcord's sporting gossip, nor the Twins' self-possessed humour. And
if my guests should turn critical I was a lost man; that I knew. How I
wished I were safe on the other side of that awful Thursday!
The day came at last, and I hurried home as hard as I could after
business to make my final preparations. The eel-pie was arriving as I
got there, and my heart was comforted by the sight. Something, at
least, was ready. But my joy was short-lived, for Mrs Nash was in a
temper. The fact is, I had unconsciously neglected a piece of advice of
hers in the matter of this very eel-pie. She had said, have it hot. I
had told the pastrycook to deliver it cold. Therefore Mrs Nash, just
at the critical moment, deserted me!
With a feeling of desperation I laid my own tablecloth--not a very good
one--and arranged as best I could the plates and dishes. Time was
getting short, and it was no use wasting time on my crabby landlady.
Yet what could I do without her? Who was to lend me a kettle, or a
saucepan for the eggs, or a toasting-fork, or, for the matter of that,
any of the material of war? It was clear I must at all hazards regain
Mrs Nash, and the next half-hour was spent in frantic appeals to every
emotion she possessed, to the drawing of abject pictures of my own
helplessness, to profuse apologies, and compliments and coaxings. I
never worked so hard in my life as I did that half-hour.
Happily it was not all in vain. She consented, at any rate, to look
after one or two of the matters in which I was most helpless, and I was
duly and infinitely thankful.
In due time all was ready, and the hour arrived. All my terrors
returned. I felt tempted to bolt from the house and leave my guests to
entertain themselves. I _hated_ Beadle Square. And there, of course,
just when I should have liked things to be at their best, there were
three or four cats setting up a most hideous concert in the yard, and
the chimney in the parlour beginning to smoke. I could have torn my
hair with rage and vexation.
I seized the tongs, and was kneeling down and vigorously pushing them up
the chimney, to ascertain the cause of this last misfortune, when a loud
double-knock at the door startled me nearly out of my senses. I had
never realised what I was in for till now!
Horror of horrors! Who was to open the door, Mrs Nash, or I? We had
never settled that. And while I stood trembling amid my smoke and eel-
pie and half-boiled eggs, the knock was repeated--this time so long and
loud that it must have been heard all over the square. I could hear
voices and laughter outside. Some one asked, "Is this the shop?" and
another voice said, "Don't see his name on the door."
Then, terrified lest they should perpetrate another solo on the knocker,
I rushed out and opened the door myself, just as Mrs Nash, with her
face scarlet and her sleeves tucked up above the elbows, also appeared
in the passage.
They were all there; they had come down in a body. Oh, how shabby I
felt as I saw them there with their fine clothes and free-and-easy
manners!
"Hullo! here you are!" said Doubleday. "Found you out, then, at last.
Haven't been this way for an age, but knew it at once by the cats.
Hullo, is this your mother? How do, Mrs Batchelor. Glad to see you.
Allow me to introduce--"
"It's not my mother!" I cried, with a suppressed groan, pulling his
arm.
"Eh, not your mother?--your aunt, perhaps? How do you--"
"No, no," I whispered; "no relation."
"Not? That's a pity! She's a tidy-looking old body, too. I say, where
do you stick your hats, eh? I bag the door-handle; you hang yours on
the key, Crow. Come on in, you fellows. Here's a spree!"
Could anything be more distressing or humiliating? Mrs Nash, too
indignant for words, had vanished to her own kitchen, shutting the door
behind her with an ominous slam, and here was the hall chock-full of
staring, giggling fellows, with not a place to hang their hats, and
Doubleday already the self-constituted master of the ceremonies!
I mildly suggested they had better bring their hats inside, but they
insisted on "stacking" them, as the Field-marshal called it, in pyramid
form on the hall floor; and I let them have their way.
"Come in," I faltered presently, when this little diversion appeared to
be ended. As I led the way into the parlour my heart was in my boots
and no mistake.
They entered, all coughing very much at the smoke. What a seedy,
disreputable hole Mrs Nash's parlour appeared at that moment!
"I'm sorry the chimney's smoking," I said, "a--a--won't you sit down?"
This invitation, I don't know why, seemed only to add to the amusement
of the party. Daly proceeded to sit down on the floor, no chair being
near, and the Twins solemnly established themselves on the top of him.
The others sat down all round the room in silence. What could I do? In
my cool moments I had thought of one or two topics of conversation, but
of course they ah deserted me now. All except the weather.
"Turned rather cold," I observed to Whipcord.
"Who?" exclaimed that worthy, with an alarmed face.
"I mean the weather's turned rather cold."
"Poor chap, pity he don't wear a top-coat."
"I say," said Doubleday, who had, to my great discomfort, been making a
tour of discovery round the room, "rather nice pictures some of these,
this one of Peace and Plenty's not half bad, is it, Whip?"
"Why you old ass, that's not Peace and Plenty, it's a Storm at Sea."
"Well, I don't care who it is, it's rattling good likenesses of them.
Hullo, Twins, don't you be going to sleep, do you hear?"
This was addressed to the two brothers, from under whom, at that moment,
Daly contrived suddenly to remove himself, leaving them to fall all of a
heap.
In the midst of the confusion caused by this accident, it occurred to me
we might as well begin supper; so I called the company to attention.
"We may as well begin," I said, "there's no one else to wait for. Will
you take that end, Doubleday?"
"I'm game," said Doubleday. "Now then, you fellows, tumble into your
seats, do you hear? We're jist a-going to begin, as the conjurer says.
I can tell you all I'm pretty peckish, too."
"So am I, rather," said Crow, winking at the company generally, who all
laughed.
Awful thought! Suppose there's not enough for them to eat after all!
I began to pour out the coffee wildly, hardly venturing to look round.
At last, however, I recollected my duties.
"That's an eel-pie in front of you, Doubleday," I said.
Now at all the parties I had been to I had never before seen an eel-pie.
I therefore flattered myself I had a novelty to offer to my guests.
"Eel-pie, eh?" said Doubleday; "do you catch them about here, then?
Eel-pie, who says eel-pie? Don't all speak at once. Bring forth the
hot plates, my boy, and we'll lead off."
"It's cold," I faltered.
"Oh, goodness gracious! _Cold_ eel-pie, gentlemen. You really must
_not_ all speak at once. Who says cold eel-pie? The Field-Marshal
does!"
"No, he doesn't," replied the Field-Marshal, laughing.
"Flanagan does, then?"
"No, thank you," said Flanagan.
"Well, you Twins; you with the cut on your chin. I wish one of you'd
always cut your chin shaving, one would know you from the other. Any
cold eel-pie?"
"Rather not," said the Twin addressed.
"Have some lobster?" I said, despairingly. If no one was going to take
eel-pie, it was certain my other provisions would not last round. Why
hadn't I taken Mrs Nash's advice, and had that unlucky dish hot?
"What will you take?" I said to Flanagan.
"Oh, I don't mind," replied he, in a resigned manner; "I'll take a
shrimp or two."
"Have something more than that. Have some lobster?" I said.
"No, thanks," he replied.
Evidently my good things were not in favour; why, I could not say.
Nobody seemed to be taking anything, and Crow was most conspicuously
_smelling_ my lobster.
The meal dragged on heavily, with more talk than eating. Every dish
came in for its share of criticism; the eel-pie remained uncut, the
lobster had lost one claw, but more than half the contents of that was
left on Abel's plate. My penny buns all vanished, that was one ray of
comfort.
"Ring the bell for more buns," said Doubleday, as if he was presiding at
his own table.
What was I to do? There were no more, and it was hardly likely Mrs
Nash would go for more. Before I could make up my mind, Whipcord had
rung a loud peal on the bell, and Mrs Nash in due time appeared.
"More buns, and look sharp, old woman," said Doubleday.
"I'll old woman you if I've much of your imperence, my young dandy!" was
the somewhat startling rejoinder. "I'll bundle the pack of you out of
the house, that I will, if you can't keep a civil tongue in your heads."
"I say, Batchelor," said Doubleday, laughing, "your aunt has got a
temper, I fancy. I'm always sorry to see it in one so young. What will
it be when--"
"Oh, please don't, Doubleday," I said; "you can see she doesn't like it.
It doesn't matter, Mrs Nash, thank you," I added.
"Oh, don't it matter?" retorted the irate Mrs Nash, "that's all; we'll
settle that pretty soon, my beauty. I'll teach you if it don't matter
that a pack of puppies comes into my house, and drinks tea out of my
cups, and calls me names before my face and behind my back; I'll teach
you!" And she bounced from the room.
I thought that meal would never end, although no one took anything. In
time even the fun and laughter, which had at first helped to keep the
thing going, died away, and the fellows lolled back in the chairs in a
listless, bored way. It was vain for me to try to lead the talk; I
could not have done it even if I had had the spirit, and there was
precious little spirit left now!
Doubleday began to look at his watch.
"Half-past seven. I say," said he, "time I was going. I've a
particular engagement at eight."
"Well, I'll go with you," said Whipcord; "I want to get something to
eat, and we can have supper together."
"Sorry we've got to go," said Doubleday. "Jolly evening, wasn't it,
Crow?"
I was too much humiliated and disgusted to notice their departure. To
have my grand entertainment sneered at and made fun of was bad enough,
but for two of my guests to leave my table for the avowed purpose of
getting something to eat was a little too much. I could barely be civil
to the rest and ask them to remain, and it was a real relief when they
one and all began to make some excuse for leaving.
So ended my famous supper-party, after which, for a season, I prudently
retired into private life.