After this, the worthy pair commenced preparations for
rejoining the waking world, and in due time proceeded down-stairs.
Everybody was late that morning, and nothing had got put to rights. The
house looked as if a small army had been quartered in it over night.
The tables were of course in huge disorder, after the protracted
assault they had undergone. There had been a great battle evidently,
and it had gone against the provisions. Some points had been stormed,
and all their defences annihilated, but here and there were centres of
resistance which had held out against all attacks,--large rounds of
beef, and solid loaves of cake, against which the inexperienced had
wasted their energies in the enthusiasm of youth or uninformed
maturity, while the longer-headed guests were making discoveries of
"shell-oysters" and "patridges" and similar delicacies.
The breakfast was naturally of a somewhat fragmentary character. A
chicken that had lost his legs in the service of the preceding campaign
was once more put on duty. A great ham stuck with cloves, as Saint
Sebastian was with arrows, was again offered for martyrdom. It would
have been a pleasant sight for a medical man of a speculative turn to
have seen the prospect before the Colonel's family of the next week's
breakfasts, dinners, and suppers.
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