Altogether there were twenty guests. Precisely at seven o'clock a
bugle sounded on the landing outside the drawing-room to announce
dinner. Everything in the CHORKLE family is done by bugle-calls.
They have _reveille_ at 7 A.M., the sergeants' call for the servants'
dinner, and lights out at eleven o'clock every night. As soon as the
call was finished, CHORKLE went up to Lady PENFOLD. "Shall we march,
Lady PENFOLD?" he said. "Sir CHARLES will bring up the rear with Mrs.
C." And thus we went down-stairs.
The dinner was a most tremendous and wonderful entertainment, and must
have lasted two hours, at the very least. There were two soups, three
fishes, dozens of _entrees_, three or four joints--the mere memory of
it is indigestive. The talk was almost entirely about local matters,
the chief subject of discussion being the Mastership of the Foxhounds.
The present Master is not going to keep them on, as he is a very old
man, and everybody seems to want Sir CHARLES to take them, but he
hangs back. Difficulties about the subscription, I fancy.
In the middle of dinner there was a fiendish row outside. I saw poor
Mrs. CHORKLE turn pale, while the Colonel got purple with fury, and
upset his champagne as he turned to say something to the butler.
Discovered afterwards that the disturbance was caused by two of the
young CHORKLES, who had got out of their bedrooms, and were lying in
ambush for the dishes.
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