{"id":"01KG6G85XAZDC365DNF1VZ92VP","cid":"bafkreicivnveouuiecxgagjp4r7mrvcqtj5zmaq7vwpbixwl7ueiadrz5e","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7456,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.153Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":7390,"text":"of collateral awe, hailed from the spot where Lord Verulam once abode a\r\nbachelor--Gray’s Inn.\r\n\r\nThe apartment was well up toward heaven. I know not how many strange old\r\nstairs I climbed to get to it. But a good dinner, with famous company,\r\nshould be well earned. No doubt our host had his dining-room so high\r\nwith a view to secure the prior exercise necessary to the due relishing\r\nand digesting of it.\r\n\r\nThe furniture was wonderfully unpretending, old, and snug. No new\r\nshining mahogany, sticky with undried varnish; no uncomfortably\r\nluxurious ottomans, and sofas too fine to use, vexed you in this sedate\r\napartment. It is a thing which every sensible American should learn from\r\nevery sensible Englishman, that glare and glitter, gimcracks and\r\ngewgaws, are not indispensable to domestic solacement. The American\r\nBenedick snatches, down-town, a tough chop in a gilded show-box; the\r\nEnglish bachelor leisurely dines at home on that incomparable South Down\r\nof his, off a plain deal board.\r\n\r\nThe ceiling of the room was low. Who wants to dine under the dome of St.\r\nPeter’s? High ceilings! If that is your demand, and the higher the\r\nbetter, and you be so very tall, then go dine out with the topping\r\ngiraffe in the open air.\r\n\r\nIn good time the nine gentlemen sat down to nine covers, and soon were\r\nfairly under way.\r\n\r\nIf I remember right, ox-tail soup inaugurated the affair. Of a rich\r\nrusset hue, its agreeable flavour dissipated my first confounding of its\r\nmain ingredient with teamsters’ gads and the raw-hides of ushers. (By\r\nway of interlude, we here drank a little claret.) Neptune’s was the next\r\ntribute rendered--turbot coming second; snow-white, flaky, and just\r\ngelatinous enough, not too turtleish in its unctuousness.\r\n\r\n(At this point we refreshed ourselves with a glass of sherry.) After\r\nthese light skirmishers had vanished, the heavy artillery of the feast\r\nmarched in, led by that well-known English generalissimo, roast beef.\r\nFor aides-de-camp we had a saddle of mutton, a fat turkey, a\r\nchicken-pie, and endless other savoury things; while for\r\n_avant-couriers_ came nine silver flagons of humming ale. This heavy\r\nordnance having departed on the track of the light skirmishers, a picked\r\nbrigade of game-fowl encamped upon the board, their camp-fires lit by\r\nthe ruddiest of decanters.\r\n\r\nTarts and puddings followed, with innumerable niceties; then cheese and\r\ncrackers. (By way of ceremony, simply, only to keep up good old\r\nfashions, we here each drank a glass of good old port.)\r\n\r\nThe cloth was now removed; and like Blucher’s army coming in at the\r\ndeath on the field of Waterloo, in marched a fresh detachment of\r\nbottles, dusty with their hurried march.\r\n\r\nAll these manœuvrings of the forces were superintended by a surprising\r\nold field-marshal (I cannot school myself to call him by the inglorious\r\nname of waiter), with snowy hair and napkin, and a head like Socrates.\r\nAmidst all the hilarity of the feast, intent on important business, he\r\ndisdained to smile. Venerable man!\r\n\r\nI have above endeavoured to give some slight schedule of the general\r\nplan of operations. But anyone knows that a good genial dinner is a sort\r\nof pell-mell, indiscriminate affair, quite baffling to detail in all\r\nparticulars. Thus, I spoke of taking a glass of claret, and a glass of\r\nsherry, and a glass of port, and a mug of ale--all at certain specific\r\nperiods and times. But those were merely the state bumpers, so to speak.\r\nInnumerable impromptu glasses were drained between the periods of those\r\ngrand imposing ones.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6QRHKDJS6PEV0YKDCE0V","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G85XB8GTDP362Y5ZMGJ79","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6G85XBSNG0QEPXX6HY4F7Y","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:17.962Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:29.031Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}