{"id":"01KG8AM637MVT7RMKH025AX9K7","cid":"bafkreihavspg5hjahtesiwij2jwov7ktkmrtmnsme3msvrex6pbxg6oodq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7565,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 6","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":7504,"text":"drinking, good feeling, and good talk. We were a band of brothers.\r\nComfort--fraternal, household comfort, was the grand trait of the\r\naffair. Also, you could plainly see that these easy-hearted men had no\r\nwives or children to give an anxious thought. Almost all of them were\r\ntravellers, too; for bachelors alone can travel freely, and without any\r\ntwinges of their consciences touching desertion of the fireside.\r\n\r\nThe thing called pain, the bugbear styled trouble--those two legends\r\nseemed preposterous to their bachelor imaginations. How could men of\r\nliberal sense, ripe scholarship in the world, and capacious\r\nphilosophical and convivial understandings--how could they suffer\r\nthemselves to be imposed upon by such monkish fables? Pain! Trouble! As\r\nwell talk of Catholic miracles. No such thing.--Pass the sherry,\r\nsir.--Pooh, pooh! Can’t be!--The port, sir, if you please. Nonsense;\r\ndon’t tell me so.--The decanter stops with you, sir, I believe.\r\n\r\nAnd so it went.\r\n\r\nNot long after the cloth was drawn our host glanced significantly upon\r\nSocrates, who, solemnly stepping to a stand, returned with an immense\r\nconvolved horn, a regular Jericho horn, mounted with polished silver,\r\nand otherwise chased and curiously enriched; not omitting two lifelike\r\ngoats’ heads, with four more horns of solid silver, projecting from\r\nopposite sides of the mouth of the noble main horn.\r\n\r\nNot having heard that our host was a performer on the bugle, I was\r\nsurprised to see him lift this horn from the table, as if he were about\r\nto blow an inspiring blast. But I was relieved from this, and set quite\r\nright as touching the purposes of the horn, by his now inserting his\r\nthumb and forefinger into its mouth; whereupon a slight aroma was\r\nstirred up, and my nostrils were greeted with the smell of some choice\r\nRappee. It was a mull of snuff. It went the rounds. Capital idea this,\r\nthought I, of taking snuff about this juncture. This goodly fashion must\r\nbe introduced among my countrymen at home, further ruminated I.\r\n\r\nThe remarkable decorum of the nine bachelors--a decorum not to be\r\naffected by any quantity of wine--a decorum unassailable by any degree\r\nof mirthfulness--this was again set in a forcible light to me, by now\r\nobserving that, though they took snuff very freely, yet not a man so far\r\nviolated the proprieties, or so far molested the invalid bachelor in the\r\nadjoining room, as to indulge himself in a sneeze. The snuff was snuffed\r\nsilently, as if it had been some fine innoxious powder brushed off the\r\nwings of butterflies.\r\n\r\nBut fine though they be, bachelors’ dinners, like bachelors’ lives,\r\ncannot endure forever. The time came for breaking up. One by one the\r\nbachelors took their hats, and two by two and arm-in-arm they descended,\r\nstill conversing, to the flagging of the court; some going to their\r\nneighbouring chambers to turn over the _Decameron_ ere retiring for the\r\nnight; some to smoke a cigar, promenading in the garden on the cool\r\nriver-side; some to make for the street, call a hack, and be driven\r\nsnugly to their distant lodgings.\r\n\r\nI was the last lingerer.\r\n\r\n‘Well,’ said my smiling host, ‘what do you think of the Temple here, and\r\nthe sort of life we bachelors make out to live in it?’\r\n\r\n‘Sir,’ said I, with a burst of admiring candour--‘Sir, this is the very\r\nParadise of Bachelors!’\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 6"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKG12HDXBTWFN1G040GPY","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM637W3N6N7PWX3FTTN78","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:28.775Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:42.114Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}