A Little Dinner at Timminss | Page 8

ate twice of it after Exeter races; and I think it might be good enough for--"
"I will NOT have it, mamma!" said Rosa, with a stamp of her foot; and Mrs. Gashleigh knew what resolution there was in that. Once, when she had tried to physic the baby, there had been a similar fight between them.
So Mrs. Gashleigh made out a carte, in which the soup was left with a dash--a melancholy vacuum; and in which the pigeons were certainly thrust in among the entrees; but Rosa determined they never should make an entree at all into HER dinner-party, but that she would have the dinner her own way.
When Fitz returned, then, and after he had paid the little bill of 6L. 14s. 6d. for the glass, Rosa flew to him with her sweetest smiles, and the baby in her arms. And after she had made him remark how the child grew every day more and more like him, and after she had treated him to a number of compliments and caresses, which it were positively fulsome to exhibit in public, and after she had soothed him into good humor by her artless tenderness, she began to speak to him about some little points which she had at heart.
She pointed out with a sigh how shabby the old curtains looked since the dear new glasses which her darling Fitz had given her had been put up in the drawing-room. Muslin curtains cost nothing, and she must and would have them.
The muslin curtains were accorded. She and Fitz went and bought them at Shoolbred's, when you may be sure she treated herself likewise to a neat, sweet pretty half-mourning (for the Court, you know, is in mourning)--a neat sweet barege, or calimanco, or bombazine, or tiffany, or some such thing; but Madame Camille, of Regent Street, made it up, and Rosa looked like an angel in it on the night of her little dinner.
"And, my sweet," she continued, after the curtains had been accorded, "mamma and I have been talking about the dinner. She wants to make it very expensive, which I cannot allow. I have been thinking of a delightful and economical plan, and you, my sweetest Fitz, must put it into execution."
"I have cooked a mutton-chop when I was in chambers," Fitz said with a laugh. "Am I to put on a cap and an apron?"
"No: but you are to go to the 'Megatherium Club' (where, you wretch, you are always going without my leave), and you are to beg Monsieur Mirobolant, your famous cook, to send you one of his best aides-de-camp, as I know he will, and with his aid we can dress the dinner and the confectionery at home for ALMOST NOTHING, and we can show those purse-proud Topham Sawyers and Rowdys that the HUMBLE COTTAGE can furnish forth an elegant entertainment as well as the gilded halls of wealth."
Fitz agreed to speak to Monsieur Mirobolant. If Rosa had had a fancy for the cook of the Prime Minister, I believe the deluded creature of a husband would have asked Lord John for the loan of him.
IV.
Fitzroy Timmins, whose taste for wine is remarkable for so young a man, is a member of the committee of the "Megatherium Club," and the great Mirobolant, good-natured as all great men are, was only too happy to oblige him. A young friend and protege of his, of considerable merit, M. Cavalcadour, happened to be disengaged through the lamented death of Lord Hauncher, with whom young Cavalcadour had made his debut as an artist. He had nothing to refuse to his master, Mirobolant, and would impress himself to be useful to a gourmet so distinguished as Monsieur Timmins. Fitz went away as pleased as Punch with this encomium of the great Mirobolant, and was one of those who voted against the decreasing of Mirobolant's salary, when the measure was proposed by Mr. Parings, Colonel Close, and the Screw party in the committee of the club.
Faithful to the promise of his great master, the youthful Cavalcadour called in Lilliput Street the next day. A rich crimson velvet waistcoat, with buttons of blue glass and gold, a variegated blue satin stock, over which a graceful mosaic chain hung in glittering folds, a white hat worn on one side of his long curling ringlets, redolent with the most delightful hair-oil--one of those white hats which looks as if it had been just skinned--and a pair of gloves not exactly of the color of beurre frais, but of beurre that has been up the chimney, with a natty cane with a gilt knob, completed the upper part at any rate, of the costume of the young fellow whom the page introduced to Mrs. Timmins.
Her mamma and she had been just having a dispute about