Ludicrous Anecdote

– One of our leading prelates some time ago invited to his hospitable mansion in London a country rector, and old friend, from one of the remote provinces. The simple-minded gentleman came about five o’clock, having a notion that he should arrive about the dinner hour. Soon after he had taken his seat tea was brought round. “Well,” thought the rector, “this is bare living at any rate; if I had known, I would have had a beefsteak at a chop-house before I came; but I hardly expected a bishop would dine at one o’clock. Is it a fast-day, I wonder!” He drank his tea, however, and said nothing. About half-past seven o’clock his bed-candle was placed in his hand, and he was conducted to his sleeping-room. “Call you this London?” he soliloquised; “why, I should have fared far better at Silverton. I should have had my comfortable mutton-chop and my glass of beer at nine o’clock, and I should have been in bed at ten, well fed and contented. But here I am half-starved in the midst of splendour, as hungry as a hunter, almost ready to devour my blanket, like the boa constrictor – ha, ha – and where everything looks so grand! Well, fine furniture won’t make a man fat. Give me substantial victuals, and you may take the gilding.” Soliloquising in this fashion he undressed himself, pulled over his ears his cotton nightcap, “with a tassel on the top,” as the song says, and crept in bed, coiling himself up comfortable; and, being of a forgiving temper, he soon forgot his troubles, and sank into his first sleep as sweetly as a “Christian child;” when, lo! After a while bells begin to ring, and a smart knock at his door resounds through this room, and a voice is heard saying – “Dinner is on the table, sir!” The old gentleman awoke in considerable confusion, not knowing whether it was to-day or to-morrow; and, according to the most authentic account, he appeared shortly after at the dinner table, though in a somewhat ruffled condition as relates to his wardrobe, and mentally in a haze of uncertainty as to the day of the week and the meal he was eating. – 

Fraser’s magazine.

Definitions:-

• prelates = high-ranking member of the clergy, especially a bishop

• chop-house = restaurant that specializes in serving steaks and chops of meat

• soliloquised = talking to oneself

• victuals = food supplies

• gilding = gold leaf or gold paint