I stood by the post and watched with hungry eyes. From within I heard voices, stifled voices, as those sent up a pipe, calling for roast beef with plenty of brown, good heavens! Plenty of brown; roast mutton, underdone—I loved my mutton underdone; boiled beef with suet-pudding and fat, I always took a great deal of pudding and fat with my boiled beef; roast veal and bacon with stuffing—a dish for the gods; calves’ head for two—I could have eaten calves’ head for a dozen; with orders pointing to things beyond my hungry imagination—hunger limits the boundaries of fancy—puddings, fish, soup, cheese, and such delicacies. Alas! I wanted the solids. I felt myself growing feebler; I became more and more doubled up; I had thoughts of entering this paradise of the hungry, and, after eating till I could eat no longer, calmly laying down my knife and fork and informing the waiter that I had no money. There was a farce in which I had once played where the comic actor sent for the landlord, after a hearty meal, and asked him what he would do in case a stranger, after ordering and eating his dinner, should declare his inability to pay. “Do, Sir?” cried the host; “I should kick him across the street.” “Landlord,” said the low comedian, and it always told—”Landlord,” he used to rise up slowly as he spoke, and solemnly draw aside his coat-tails, turning his face in the direction of the street-door—”Landlord, I’ll trouble you.” I used to play the landlord.
It struck half-past three; the dead gnawing of hunger was followed by a sharp pain, irritating and much more unpleasant. The crowd of those who entered had been followed by the crowd of those who came out and the heaven of hungry men was nearly empty again. I gazed still upon the turkeys and the hares, but with a lacklustre eye, for I was nearly fainting.
Presently there came down the street an elderly gentleman, bearing before him, like a Lord Mayor in a French tale, his enormous abdomen: he had white hair, white eyebrows, white whiskers, and a purple face. He walked very slowly, as if the exertion might prove apoplectic, and leaned upon a thick stick. As he passed the shop he looked in at the window and wagged his head. At that moment I groaned involuntarily. He turned round and surveyed me. I suppose I presented a strange appearance, leaning against the post, with stooping figure and tightly-buttoned coat. He had big projecting eyes flushed with red veins, which gave him a wolfish expression.
“Young man,” he said, not benignantly at all, but severely, “you look ill. Have you been drinking?”
I shook my head.
“I am only hungry,” I said, telling, the truth because I was too far gone to hide it, “I am only hungry; that is the matter with me.”
He planted his stick on the ground, supporting both his hands upon the gold head, and wagged his head again from side to side with a grunting sound in his throat like the sawing of bones.
Grunt! “Here’s a pretty fellow for you!” Grunt! “Hungry, and he looks miserable.” Grunt! “Hungry, and he groans.” Grunt! “Hungry—the most enviable position a man can be in—and he dares to repine at his lot.” Grunt! “What are the lower classes coming to next, I wonder? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Aren’t you a model of everything that is ungrateful and”—grunt!—”and flying in the face of Providence? He lives in a land of victuals. London is a gigantic caravan, full of the most splendid things, the most glorious things to eat and drink; it only wants an appetite; and he’s got that, and he laments!”
“What is the use of an appetite if you have no money to satisfy it with?”
Grunt! “Is it a small appetite, as a rule, or is it a large appetite?”
“Large,” I replied. “It is an awkward thing for a poor beggar like me to have such a devil of a twist. I was born with it. Very awkward just now.”
“Come with me, young man,” he grunted. “Go before me. Don’t talk, because that may interfere with the further growth of your appetite. Walk slowly, and keep your mouth shut close.”
He came behind me, walking with his chuckle and grunt.
“So. What a fine young fellow it is!” Grunt! “What room for the development of the Alderman’s Arch! What a backbone for the support of a stomach! What shoulders for a dinner-table, and what legs to put under it! Heavens! what a diner might be made of this boy if he only had money.” Grunt! “Youth and appetite—health and hunger—and all thrown away upon a pauper! What a thing, what a thing! This way, young man.”
Turning down a court leading out of Bucklersbury, he guided me to a door, a little black portal, at which he stopped; then stooping to a keyhole of smaller size than was generally used in those days, he seemed to me to blow into it with his mouth; this was absurd, of course, but it seemed so to me. The door opened. He led the way into a passage, which, when the door shut behind us, as it did of its own accord, was pitch dark. We went up some stairs, and on the first landing the old gentleman, who was wheezing and puffing tremendously, opened another door, and led me into a room. It was a large room, resplendent with the light of at least forty wax candies. The centre was occupied by a large dining-table laid for a single person. Outside it was broad daylight, for it was not yet four o’clock.
“Sit down, young man, sit down,” puffed my host. “Oh dear! Oh dear! Sit down, do. I wish I was as hungry as you.”
I sat down in the nearest chair, and looked round the room. The first thing I remarked was that I could not see the door by which we had been admitted. The room was octagonal, and on every side stood some heavy piece of furniture; a table with glass, a case of bookshelves, a sofa, but no door. My hear began to go round as I continued my observations. There was no window either, nor was there any fireplace. Then I felt a sudden giddiness, and I suppose I fell backwards on my chair. It was partly the faintness of hunger, but partly it was the strange room, and that old man glaring at me with his great wolfish eyes.
When I recovered I was lying on a sofa, and soft cold fingers were bathing my head, and pressing a perfumed handkerchief to my lips. I opened my eyes suddenly and sat up completely recovered. At the foot of the sofa stood my entertainer.
“Easy with him, Boule-de-neige; make him rest for a moment. Perhaps his hunger has been too much for him.”
I turned to see who Boule-de-neige was. He was a negro of the blackest type, an ancient and withered as some old ourang of tropical woods; his cheeks hung in folds, and his skin seemed too much for his attenuated body; his wool was white, and his gums were almost toothless; and his nose so flattened with age as to be almost invisible, looking at him as I was looking, in profile. His hands were as soft as any woman’s, but icy cold; and his eyes were red and fiery.
“Boule-de-neige, what do you think of him?”
“Him berry fine young man, massa: him beautiful young man; got lubly abbatite develoffed, I tink; him last long time, much longer time dan last oder young man. Cluck. Him poor trash, dat young man; dam poor trash; use up and go to debbel in a month. Cluck! Dis young man got lovely stumjack, strong as bull. Cluck—cluck! How much you tink him eat tonight?”
“We shall see, Boule-de-neige. We will try him with a simple dinner, and then pronounce on his performances. Young men do not always come up to their professions. But he looks well, and perhaps, Boule-de-neige—perhaps—ah!” He nodded with a deep sigh.
“What time massa dine himself?”
“I don’t know,” the old gentleman answered, with another heavy sigh, “Perhaps not till nine o’clock; perhaps not then. It all depends on this youth. Vanish, Boule-de-neige, and serve.”
There was evidently something in my host’s mind by the way he sighed. Why did it depend upon me? And did Boule-de-neige go through the floor? Did the table sink when he disappeared, and come up loaded with dishes? It seemed so.
I sprang from the couch. The sight and smell of the food brought back my raging hunger.
“Let me eat!” I cried.
“You shall. One moment first—only a single moment. Young man, tell me again and explicitly th
e nature and extent of your appetite. Be truthful, oh, be truthful! Our little tongues should never he for mutton-chop or apple-pie. You know the hymn. I hope you have been religiously brought up, and know that hymn.”
“I’ve got a devil of an appetite. What is there to lie about?”
“My dear young friend, there are many kinds of appetites. Yours may be fierce at first and promise great things, and then end in a miserably small performance. I have known such, and mourned to see them. Is it a lasting appetite, now? Is it steady through a long dinner? Is it regular in its recurrence?”
“You shall see something of my performance,” I laughed, insensate wretch. “You shall see. I never had a long dinner in my life, because I always made short work of mine. It is steady through a good many pounds of steak, and as regular as a clock.”
“That is always something. Steak is as healthy a test as I know. Is it, secondly, an appetite that recovers itself quickly? That is very important. Is it a day-by-day or an hour-by-hour appetite? Is it good at all times of the day?”
“Alas, I wish it were not!”
“Hush, young man; do not blaspheme! Tell me, if you eat your fill now—it is half-past four—when do you think you might be ready again?” His eyes glistened like a couple of great rubies in the candlelight, and his hands trembled.
“I should say about eight. But I might do something light at seven, I daresay. Just now I feel as if I could eat a mountain.”
“He feels as if he could eat a mountain! Wonderful are the gifts of Providence! My dear young friend, I am very thankful—deeply Thankful—that I met you. Sit down, and let me take the covers off for you; I long to see you eat. This is a blessed day—a truly blessed day! I will wait upon you myself. No one else. Boule-de-neige, vanish!”
As he was about to take off the covers he stopped short.
“Stay. You are without occupation?”
“I can get none.”
“You are of any trade?”
“I am an actor.”
“A bad trade—an un-Christian trade. Actors are vagabonds by Act of Parliament. Actors can never be in a state of grace. I shall be happy in being a humble instrument in removing you from a calling fatal to the Christian warrior. Why did you leave your last situation? No dishonesty? No embezzlement? No tampering with accounts?”
“Sir, I have always been an honest man. And, besides, I have never been tempted by the handling of other people’s money.”
“Ha! You have got no wife?”
“No, Sir; I am unmarried.”
“You have got no—I trust I am taking to my bosom no deceiver of women. You are not the father of an illegitimate offspring, I hope and pray.”
“No, Sir; I am not.”
“Young man, you are about to enter upon a most serious act, perhaps the most serious act of your life, and these questions may appear to you trivial and tedious. As a Christian, and a member of the congregation of Mr.—But never mind;—you are hungry now, and wish to eat. We will talk after dinner.”
He took off the covers. The table was spread with a dozen different dishes, all served up together. Others I noticed, standing with bottles and decanters, on a large sideboard. As my generous benefactor removed the silver covers, his face, which had assumed during his questioning an austere gravity, suddenly lit up, and he laughed as the perfume of the hot food mounted to his nostrils. He seemed all at once a different man.
“Gently, gently, my dear young friend. Here is a dinner fit for a king; fit for me, if I could eat it. Oh! My dainty Boule-de-neige! Ha! Is it right to waste such a dinner upon a youth whose only dreams are of a sufficiency of steak? Young man, in after years—ahem!—in after days you will remember this dinner. You will recall every item in this delicious bill of fare which Boule-de-neige has set before you. Let me teach you to eat it properly. Weigh your morsels.”
Heaven! how I cursed his delay. He kept one great hand between me and the dishes, for fear, I suppose, that I should pounce upon them and clear them off all at once.
“Patience, patience. Consider each mouthful. Try to be thankful that cooks have brought their divine art to such perfection. Carry back your thoughts to—grunt—to time when all mankind fed upon imperfectly cooked steak. Think that all the treasures of the East and West have been ransacked to furnish for me this meal, and that you will never, never, never see such a dinner again as long as you live.”
At all events, I never saw such a meal again as long is he lived.
“We will now,” he said, with a backward wave of his right hand, “consider dinner as a science.”
“Oh, Sir!” I exclaimed, “I am so hungry.”
“It’s beautiful to see you hungry, but I must not let you hurry. Eat as much as you like when you begin, but gently, gently—easily and gently. Think of the future. Think of ME.”
I stared at him in wonder.
“Think of you, Sir?”
“Why, what would happen to me if you really destroyed your appetite, or even yourself in swallowing a bone?”
I thought he must be mad.
“Young man,” he went on, “you will say a grace before meat, if you remember one.”
I did not.
“Then I will say one for you. Oh! wretched trade of stage acting. He does not even know a single grace before meat.”
Then he began to help me—and we went on with dinner without further interruption. He kept up a running accompaniment of comment as I devoured the meal, and his manner gradually lost all its solemnity, until before I was more than half through the dinner he was dancing about, slapping his leg with delight, and laughing till he grew almost black in the face.
Why he was so pleased I could not tell. I was soon to learn.
“These are plovers’ eggs. No better thing ever discovered to begin your dinner with. Alderman Stowport says oysters are better. That is rubbish. I do not despise oysters—Why, he has eaten the whole six! Bravo! Bravo! An excellent beginning. Let me take away the plate, my dear Sir. Now we have turtle soup—gently, my young friend, gently. Ah, impetuous youth! More? Stay—green fat. Humour, humour your appetite; don’t drive it; calipash and calipee. It’s really sinful to eat so fast. He takes all down without tasting it. No—no more; you must give yourself a fair chance, and not spoil your dinner with too much turtle.” He put the soup aside, and took the cover off another dish. “Salmon—with cucumber. Lobster—sauce—bless me, it’s like a dream of fairyland! Fillet of sole—a beautiful dream to see him. Ho! ho! he’s a Julius Cæsar the Conqueror. Croquet de volaille—gone like a cloud from the sky. Don’t wolf the food, my friend; there is a limit to the cravings of nature imposed by the claims of art; taste it. Ris de veau—smiles of the dear little innocent, confiding calf—a little more bread with it? Mauviettes en caisse, larks in baskets—sweet, rapturous, singing larks, toothsome cockyolly larks. He eats them up, bones and all. Ha! ha! Pause, my dear sir, and drink something. Here are champagne, hock, and sauterne; never touch sherry, it’s a made-up wine, even the best of it. Come, a little champagne.”
“I generally take draught-beer, Sir,” I replied, modestly. “That is the drink to which I have been accustomed and—not too much of it; but, if you please, a little fizz will be acceptable.”
I drank three glasses in rapid succession, and found them good. He meanwhile nodded and winked with an ever-increasing delight which I failed to understand.
“Now, my Nero, my Paris of Troy, my Judas Maccabaeus”—he mixed up his names, but it mattered nothing—”here is saddle of mutton, with potatoes, cauliflower, currant-jelly. More champagne? It’s worth sums of money to see him. Curry? More champagne? Curry of chicken? Cabob curry of chicken, young Alexander the Great? Plenty of rice? Ho, ho, ho! Plenty of rice, he said; why, he is a Goliath—a Goliath of Gath, this young man!”
He really grew so purple
that I thought he would have a fit of some kind. But the flattery pleased me all the same, and I went on eating and drinking as if I was only just beginning.
“Quail or bécassine—snipe, that is? He takes both, like Pompey. More champagne? Jelly, my Heliogabalus, my modern Caracalla, apricot-jelly? Cabinet pudding? He has two helpings of the pudding. King Solomon in all his glory never—More champagne? A little hock to finish with? He takes his hock in a tumbler, this young Samson. Cheese—Brie—and celery. A glass of port with the cheese. He takes that in a tumbler too, like Og, King of Bashan.”
I was really overwhelmed with the splendour of the dinner, the Classical and biblical flattery, and the extraordinary gratification which my really enormous hunger caused this remarkable old gentleman. He clapped his hands; he nodded his head; he slapped his legs: he winked and grinned; he smacked his lips; he evinced every sign of the most unbounded delight. When I had quite finished eating, which was not before we had got through the whole list of courses, he gave me a bottle of claret, and watched me while I rapidly disposed of it. Then he produced from a sideboard, where I certainly had not seen it a moment before, a small cup of strong black coffee with a tiny glass of liqueur. As for my own part, I hope I have made it clear that I dined extremely well; in fact, I had never even dreamed of such a dinner in my life. It was not only that I was half starved, but that the things were so good. Imagine the astonishment of a young strolling actor, whose highest dreams were of sufficient beefsteak, not of the primest part, at such a magnificent feed. I felt as if I had dropped unexpectedly into a fortune. I had.
The Devils & Demons MEGAPACK ®: 25 Modern and Classic Tales Page 47