SCENE II. Supper Room. Round Table. Enter NORTH, TICKLER, MULLION, and HOGG. AMBROSE preceding. Waiters following. To them, ODOHERTY. ODOHERTY. Just in time, I see. I hope I have not kept you waiting. I was just dining with Patrick Robertson, and had to run for it. NORTH. Do not delay us longer by your apologies. Gentlemen, be seated. Ambrose. ODOHERTY. MULLION. Jenny Rintherout. MULLION, (after contemplating the table with profound admiration.) This is a supper. Ambrose, a dram. What would Barry Cornwall say to such a sight? Nothing. He'd faint on the spot. NORTH. A round table, sir, may seem matter of form, as my friend Samuel Rogers says, but is matter of substance. The round table, which one may say literally gave peace to Europe, may still be seen at Aix-la-Chapelle. HOGG. Hout-that's the auld clishmaclavero' Johnny Groats revived. Vera respectable steaks them, Mr Ambrose. ODOHERTY. I had rather see a table which would give oysters to the present company. NORTH. Do you like these oysters? ODOHERTY. Excellent indeed. I own, however, I am national enough to prefer the Irish. The Carlingford oysters— TICKLER to NORTH, (aside.) A maxim, hem! ODOHERTY. —Are small, but of a peculiarly fine flavour. The Bland oyster of Kerry, so called after a family of that name, not from any blandness of their taste, are good. Those of Cork harbour are gigantic as big as your common dessert plates, and very agreeable. Which do you prefer? ODOHERTY. A difficult question. The large oyster is like your large beauty, melting, luxurious, and soul-soothing. The small, like your small beauties, piquant, savoury, soul-awakening. Good oysters should taste like a copper halfpenny. TICKLER. Damn oysters! ODOHERTY. I am sorry to hear that expression from a man of your taste and genius, Mr Tickler.-Will you let me put one in the fire for you, North? NORTH. Why in the fire ? ODOHERTY. If you have never eaten roasted oysters, I shall shew you the way we of the Emerald Isle very often do them. [Takes a dozen Pandores, and puts them between the bars. HOGG. Od, how the deevils fizz! They put a body in mind o' Wordsworth's lintwhites singing in chorus. ODOHERTY. Or as you yourself, a much greater poet, observe in your beautiful Queen Hynde, on the same subject, The liquid sounding flame enclosed them, HOGG. Oh, man! I aye forget the morn, whaur the saul o' me finds rhymes ower the night. They just come bumming into my lugs like a flight o' bees, whuz, whuzzing aboot a beescap. NORTH. Why, James, you are poetical even in prose. ODOHERTY. The oysters are done. Take care, man; you'll burn your fingers. I'll hand them to you with the tongs. How do you dress them? TICKLER. ODOHERTY. Permit me. You just put a nut-shell size of butter What kind o' nut, my lad? Peace, porker!-a hazelnut-size of butter under the oyster in its deep shell, which you see melts it, as a young maiden melts beneath the warm influence of love, then shred your eschalot gently into the same; garlick would be better, if you had it; or better still a dew-drop of assafoetida. HOGG. HOGG. Do ye mean a cocker-nut? ODOHERTY. Haugh! haugh!—Wha the deevil would swallow assafœtida ?—I scunner at the bare thocht. ODOHERTY. A proof that the population of Scotland is not yet civilized. If the Morning Chronicle man were to hear this from the Shepherd, he would forget the unscientific hostility to extermination in this more glaring act of barbarism. Having so far prepared the oyster, shower in your cayenne He who peppers the highest is sure to please- TICKLER. I do not like oysters; but if I must eat them, it would not be with this cookery. The native garum is their best sauce. ODOHERTY. De gustibus, &c. What is your favourite supper, Tickler? TICKLER. Devilled kidneys, as they do them in Germany, just broiled and peppered plainly. As for your champagne-dressed kidneys, they are not for my palate. They are greasy, and won't relish. NORTH. NORTH. A plain lobster sallad for me. It may be vulgar, but in my situation I like to fall in occasionally with the popular taste. If I be inclined to be luxurious, give me devilled woodcock-cayenned-curry-powdered-truffled-madeiraed -seville-oranged-catsupped-soyed ODOHERTY. Crushed with its trail and brains-beaten to a paste-seasoned with mace and lemon-peel -heated ODOHERTY. -with spirits of wine, if you love me NORTH. -in a silver stew-pan, saturated with its piquant juice, and gently liquified with the huile of Aix, city of oil and amphitheatre. It is heavenly. HOGG. What a deevil o' a mess! I wadna gie't to Clavers for physic!-bird's dung and oil-och! Gie me a half stun o' stot steak, wi' ingans; and, Mr Tickler, ye may squash in a dozen or sae o' yer kidneys, if ye like. I dinna objec. NORTH. Have you supped yet, gentlemen? (they assent.) To save the trouble of removing things, &c., I have ordered, and made it a standing order, that the punch be made in the punchery, at the feet of the portrait of Ambrose. NORTH. Just wait a moment, until the Ambrosian gives the word. I like to have all things in order. TICKLER. Surely, surely-There's still some of the porter here. ODOHERTY. NORTH. And such porter! Here, a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull all together! A stave, ODoherty, en attendant. ODOHERTY. By Jupiter! and why should I not? Sure, 'tis the first night of all the year, is it not -Here goes!-here goes!-Devil take the expense. AIR-"I am a bold son of Mars." Now the year twenty-four is vanish'd and no more, The cause for which we fight-the cause of Truth and Right, Who now would care three figs for prating of the Whigs, And return quite merry here at the ending of the year, All's right!!! TICKLER. [Exeunt. SCENE III. The Punchery, alias Estuminet. Enter NORTH and Tail. They are seated, and commence operations. HOGG. Hae ye seen, Captain, the answer to your blackguard sang about Scotland, in the Dumfries Journal? ODOHERTY. Not I. I read no papers but the Morning Chronicle, and Pearce Egan's Dispatch. They contain all the sprees. My friend, John Black, is great on the subject of watchmen-and as for Pearce, I need not sound his praises. What is the song, Hogg? HOGG. Well then, my lad, I'll just sing it to you. MULLION. It is happy for Sinclair that he has left the country. HOGG (Sings.) TO ODOHERTY, In Answer to "Farewell," &c. The muckle diel accompany thee. And there is ane, the gallows-tree, A fitting place it is for thee. ODOHERTY. A song by no means to be sneezed at. But why do they father the song on Scotland or me? TICKLER. Is it not yours, then? ODOHERTY, Not at all. I sung it in this room-but so have I sung many a chant of Captain Morris's and Ned Lysaght's; but are they therefore mine? Johnny Brayhim would be the greatest song-writer in the kingdom at that rate. NORTH. I know it is not yours-but it has been generally attributed to you. ODOHERTY. Everything good in a certain line is— TICKLER. Which certain line, entre nous, is the blackguard line. Where's the stoup? ODOHERTY. So be it. But as for this song, if you will turn up the London Magazine for February, 1823, the very number, by the by, which contains the attack on Peveril-you will see a tale of Allan Cunningham's, entitled and called Corporal Colville, in which that very "Farewell to beggarly Scotland" occurs. 7 HOGG. I'll write to Allan the morn about it. There, Mr Tickler-it's maist toom. ODOHERTY. And if you do, tell him, though it is passed off there as an old song, that I shrewdly suspect it to be his own-and add, that I think it is his best. NORTH. The sugar, Tim.-I think I heard the song fifty years ago—but Allan is a likely man enough to pass off an affair of his own as an old one. TICKLER. The Row gives a fine notion of the relative sales of the two Magazines. NORTH. Pooh! pooh! We all remember how he bammed that poor ass Cromek. But the thing is not worth the words wasted about it. I see the London has altered its plan. Do you know anything about it, Ensign ? ODOHERTY. Very little. I understand that there was a turn-out among the workmen, which made Taylor come to terms. The old hands continue-I do not think they have got any new ones. Lamb is a clever fellow. MULLION. They have augmented the price and quantity. ODOHERTY. Price, certainly, but not quantity. For you know enough of printing, Mr Secretary, to see that by the adoption of a new kind of type, and a more sparing distribution of it, they actually have less matter than before. MULLION. Their subscribers will scarcely thank them for that. NORTH. Silence, gentlemen, I insist, on such a topic-it is highly indelicate in my friends, and I shall not permit it. HOGG. Weel, after a', ye've brewed a dacentish joog. TICKLER. Considering! (aside.)-I say, North, have you read that pamphlet of Blackwood's on the proposed Change in the Administration of Criminal Justice here in Scotia? NORTH. Yes, Tim, and I assure you I think it the best pamphlet that has appeared anywhere this many a day. Tommy Kennedy, poor devil, is certainly both basted and dished to his heart's content at last. TICKLER. Ay, indeed. A proper fellow for a legislator-a Solon, with a witness, is Master Tommy! Whose is the pamphlet, by the way? TICKLER. NORTH. I don't know. Ebony, as usual, sports mum. Quite impenetrable, you know. Bless me, only look at Hogg! ODOHERTY. What a grand repose! Why, the man sleeps like a very murderer. How the porker snores! NORTH. Poor James. He has ridden seven-and-thirty miles of a very rough road, to-day, you must remember-and that at the tail of half a hundred kylies, too. What would not I give, now, to be able to sleep in that style. You might blow up the castle, and he would not hear it-not one jot. O Fortunati Agricolæ, sua si bona norint ! ODOHERTY. Why, Jem does know his own felicities. He's a very contented fellow, I must say that for him. NORTH. Not a better creature living-and yet you, you dog-faced devil, how you cut him. That paper on him and Campbell is really one of the most indefensible pieces of your blackguardism I have met with lately. Fie, fie, Sir Morgan; men like these, sir, are not to be dealt with in such a ruffianly fashion. You may depend upon it, sir, neither England nor Scotland will en VOL. XVII. |
