“Yes,” he said, “I was at the House more than thirty years ago, and to tell you the truth, it’s the only House (with a capital H), that I ever wanted te be in.”

The fact of the matter, so JERRAM told me, was that Sir CHARLES did once want to stand for Parliament, but somehow or other the scheme fell through, and since then he’s always spoken rather bitterly of the House of Commons.  Their daughter, whom I took in to dinner, is a very pretty girl of nineteen, with plenty to say for herself.  She told me they were going to be in London for about three weeks in June and July, so I hope to see something of them.  Besides the PENFOLDS there were Mr. and Mrs. TOLLAND; Mrs. TOLLAND in a green silk dress with more gold chains wound about various parts of her person than I ever saw on any other woman.  Two officers of CHORKLE’S Volunteers were there with their wives, Major WORBOYS, an enormous, red-whiskered man who doesn’t think much, privately, of CHORKLE’S ability as a soldier, and Captain YATMAN, a dapper little fellow, whose weakness it is to pretend to know all about smart Society in London.

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.  HOBBES LEVIATHAN CHORKLE had carried off a dish of sweetbreads, for which STRAFFORD THOROUGH CHORKLE had expressed a liking.  The result was, that HOBBES LEVIATHAN got his head punched by STRAFFORD THOROUGH, who then rubbed his face with sweetbread.

After dinner there was music, but not a whiff of tobacco.

Mother comes to open the Bazaar on Wednesday.

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