'Well;--it's a very good thing to be hungry;--that is if you can get
plenty to eat. Salmon is it? I don't think I'll have any myself.
Kidneys! Not for me. I think I'll take a bit of fried bacon. I
also am hungry, but now awfully hungry.'
'You never seem to me to eat anything, sir.'
'Eating is an occupation from which I think a man takes the more
pleasure the less he considers it. A rural labourer who sits on
the ditch-side with his bread and cheese and an onion has more
enjoyment out of it than any Lucullus.'
'But he likes a good deal of it.'
'I do not think he ever over-eats himself,--which Lucullus does. I
have envied the ploughman his power,--his dura ilia,--but never an
epicure the appreciative skill of his palate. If Gerald does not
make haste he will have to exercise neither the one nor the other
upon that fish.'
'I will leave a bit for him, sir,--and here he is. You are twenty
minutes late, Gerald. My father says that bread and cheese and
onions would be better for you than salmon and stewed kidneys.'
'No, Silverbridge;--I said no such thing; but that if he were a
hedger and ditcher the bread and cheese would be as good.
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