Old Hunks, the miser, who died lately (leaving his
money to his housekeeper) lived many years on the fat of the land, by
simply taking down, at all his friends', the names and Christian names
OF ALL THE CHILDREN. But though you may have your own opinion about
the hospitality of your acquaintances; and though men who ask you from
sordid motives are most decidedly Dinner-giving Snobs, it is best not
to inquire into their motives too keenly. Be not too curious about the
mouth of a gift-horse. After all, a man does not intend to insult you by
asking you to dinner.
Though, for that matter, I know some characters about town who actually
consider themselves injured and insulted if the dinner or the company
is not to their liking. There is Guttleton, who dines at home off a
shilling's-worth of beef from the cookshop, but if he is asked to dine
at a house where there are not pease at the end of May, or cucumbers in
March along with the turbot, thinks himself insulted by being invited.
'Good Ged!' says he, 'what the deuce do the Forkers mean by asking ME
to a family dinner? I can get mutton at home;' or 'What infernal
impertinence it is of the Spooners to get ENTREES from the pastrycook's,
and fancy that I am to be deceived with their stories about their French
cook!' Then, again, there is Jack Puddington--I saw that honest fellow
t'other day quite in a rage, because, as chance would have it, Sir
John Carver asked him to meet the very same party he had met at Colonel
Cramley's the day before, and he had not got up a new set of stories
to entertain them.
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