below this institution, fumes arose, suggestive
of a class of soup which Mr. Grazinglands knew,
from painful experience, enfeebles the mind,
distends the stomach, forces itself into the
complexion, and tries to ooze out at the eyes. As
he decided against entering, and turned away,
Mrs. Grazinglands, becoming perceptibly weaker,
repeated, "I am rather faint, Alexander, but
don't mind me." Urged to new efforts by these
words of resignation, Mr. Grazinglands looked in
at a cold and floury baker's shop, where utilitarian
buns unrelieved by a currant consorted with
hard biscuits, a stone filter of cold water, a hard
pale clock, and a hard little old woman with
flaxen hair, of an undeveloped-farinaceous
aspect, as if she had been fed upon seeds. He
might have entered even here, but for the timely
remembrance coming upon him that Jairing's
was but round the corner,

Now, Jairing's being an hotel for families and
gentlemen, in high repute among the midland
counties, Mr. Grazinglands plucked up a great
spirit when he told Mrs. Grazinglands she
should have a chop there. That lady, likewise,
felt that she was going to see Life. Arriving
on that gay and festive scene, they found the
second waiter, in a flabby undress, cleaning the
windows of the empty coffee-room, and the first
waiter, denuded of his white tie, making up his
cruets behind the Post-office Directory. The
latter (who took them in hand) was greatly put
out by their patronage, and showed his mind to
be troubled by a sense of the pressing necessity of
instantly smuggling Mrs. Grazinglands into the
obscurest corner of the building. This slighted
lady (who is the pride of her division of the
county) was immediately conveyed, by several
dark passages, and up and down several steps,
into a penitential apartment at the back of the
house, where five invalided old plate-warmers
leaned up against one another under a discarded
old melancholy sideboard, and where the wintry
leaves of all the dining-tables in the house lay
thick. Also, a sofa, of incomprehensible form
regarded from any sofane point of view, murmured
" Bed;" while an air of mingled fluffiness
and heeltaps, added, "Second Waiter's."
Secreted in this dismal hold, objects of a mysterious
distrust and suspicion, Mr. Grazinglands and his
charming partner waited twenty minutes for the
smoke (for it never came to a fire), twenty-five
minutes for the sherry, half an hour for the table-
cloth, forty minutes for the knives and forks,
three-quarters of an hour for the chops, and an
hour for the potatoes. On settling the little bill—
which was not much more than the day's pay of
a Lieutenant in the navy—Mr. Grazinglands took
heart to remonstrate against the general quality
and cost of his reception. To whom the waiter
replied, substantially, that Jairing's made it a
merit to have accepted him on any terms;
"for," added the waiter (unmistakably coughing
at Mrs. Grazinglands, the pride of her division
of the county), " when individuals is not staying
in the 'Ouse, their favours is not as a rule looked
upon as making it worth Mr. Jairings's while;
nor is it, indeed, a style of business Mr. Jairing
wishes." Finally, Mr. and Mrs. Grazinglands
passed out of Jairing's hotel for Families and
Gentlemen, in a state of the greatest depression,
scorned by the bar; and did not recover their
self-respect for several days.

Or take another case. Take your own case.

You are going off by railway, from any
Terminus. You have twenty minutes for dinner,
before you go. You want your dinner, and,
like Doctor Johnson, sir, you like to dine. You
present to your mind, a picture of the refreshment-
table at that terminus. The conventional
shabby evening party supper—accepted as the
model for all termini and all refreshment stations,
because it is the last repast known to this
state of existence of which any human creature
would partake, but in the direst extremity—
sickens your contemplation, and your words are
these: " I cannot dine on stale sponge-cakes
that turn to sand in the mouth. I cannot
dine on shining brown patties, composed of
unknown animals within, and offering to my view
the device of an indigestible star-fish in leaden
pie-crust without. I cannot dine on a sandwich
that has long been pining under an
exhausted receiver. I cannot dine on barley-sugar.
I cannot dine on Toffee." You repair to the
nearest hotel, and arrive, agitated, in the coffee-
room.

It is a most astonishing fact that the waiter
is very cold to you. Account for it how you
may, smooth it over how you will, you cannot
deny that he is cold to you. He is not glad to
see you, he does not want you, he would much
rather you hadn't come. He opposes to your
flushed condition, an immovable composure.
As if this were not enough, another waiter,
born, as it would seem, expressly to look at
you in this passage of your life, stands at a
little distance, with his napkin under his arm
and his hands folded, looking at you with
all his might. You impress on your waiter
that you have ten minutes for dinner, and he
proposes that you shall begin with a bit of fish
which will be ready in twenty. That proposal
declined, he suggests—as a neat originality—"a
weal or mutton cutlet." You close with either
cutlet, any cutlet, anything. He goes, leisurely,
behind a door and calls down some unseen
shaft. A ventriloquial dialogue ensues, tending
finally to the effect that weal only, is available
on the spur of the moment. You anxiously call
out, " Veal then!" Your waiter, having settled
that point, returns to array your tablecloth, with
a table napkin folded cocked-hat-wise (slowly,
for something out of window engages his eye),
a white wine-glass, a green wine-glass, a blue
finger-glass, a tumbler, and a powerful field battery
of fourteen castors with nothing in them;
or at all events—which is enough for your
purpose—with nothing in them that will come out.
All this time, the other waiter looks at you—
with an air of mental comparison and curiosity,
now, as if it had occurred to him that you are
rather like his brother. Half your time gone,
and nothing come but the jug of ale and the
bread, you implore your waiter to "see after