{"id":"01KG6YH1XF6D32CMZSFEQCJ78Y","cid":"bafkreidshomlu4qkkfi3alwepw7hny4tpg47h55g3cerez6v23bi5ra6zu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3604,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","start_line":3539,"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\r\nold stairs I climbed to get to it. But a good dinner, with famous\r\ncompany, should be well earned. No doubt our host had his dining-room\r\nso high with a view to secure the prior exercise necessary to the due\r\nrelishing and 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\r\nfrom every sensible Englishmen, 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\r\nDown of his, off a plain deal board.\r\n\r\nThe ceiling of the room was low. Who wants to dine under the dome of\r\nSt. Peter'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 flavor dissipated my first confounding of its\r\nmain ingredient with teamster's gads and the rawhides of ushers. (By\r\nway of interlude, we here drank a little claret.) Neptune's was the\r\nnext tribute rendered--turbot coming second; snow-white, flaky, and\r\njust gelatinous enough, not too turtleish in its unctuousness. (At this\r\npoint we refreshed ourselves with a glass of sherry.) After these light\r\nskirmishers had vanished, the heavy artillery of the feast marched\r\nin, led by that well-known English generalissimo, roast beef. For\r\naids-de-camp we had a saddle of mutton, a fat turkey, a chicken-pie,\r\nand endless other savory things; while for avant-couriers came nine\r\nsilver flagons of humming ale. This heavy ordnance having departed\r\non the track of the light skirmishers, a picked brigade of game-fowl\r\nencamped upon the board, their camp-fires lit by the ruddiest of\r\ndecanters.\r\n\r\nTarts and puddings followed, with innumerable niceties; then cheese\r\nand crackers. (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 manoeuvrings of the forces were superintended by a surprising\r\nold field marshal (I can not school myself to call him by the\r\ninglorious name of waiter), with snowy hair and napkin, and a head like\r\nSocrates. Amidst all the hilarity of the feast, intent on important\r\nbusiness, he disdained to smile. Venerable man!\r\n\r\nI have above endeavored to give some slight schedule of the general\r\nplan of operations. But any one knows that a good, general dinner is\r\na sort of pell-mell, indiscriminate affair, quite baffling to detail\r\nin all particulars. Thus, I spoke of taking a glass of claret, and a\r\nglass of sherry, and a glass of port, and a mug of ale--all at certain\r\nspecific periods and times. But those were merely the state bumpers,\r\nso to speak. Innumerable impromptu glasses were drained between the\r\nperiods of those grand imposing ones.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBGKAZPPX2G91V9P9TY1","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH1XCR87NSYZBN6FT2R4R","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH1XC2N2HCYZBM6MZ0S0B","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:48.847Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:57:54.483Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}