They were models in miniature, and they represented
the Sheridan Building, the Sheridan Apartments, and the Pump Works.
Nearly all the guests recognized them without having to be told what
they were, and pronounced the likenesses superb.
The arrangement of the table was visibly baronial. At the head sat
the great Thane, with the flower of his family and of the guests about
him; then on each side came the neighbors of the "old" house, grading
down to vassals and retainers--superintendents, cashiers, heads of
departments, and the like--at the foot, where the Thane's lady took
her place as a consolation for the less important. Here, too, among
the thralls and bondmen, sat Bibbs Sheridan, a meek Banquo, wondering
how anybody could look at him and eat.
Nevertheless, there was a vast, continuous eating, for these were
wholesome folk who understood that dinner meant something intended
for introduction into the system by means of an aperture in the face,
devised by nature for that express purpose. And besides, nobody
looked at Bibbs.
He was better content to be left to himself; his voice was not strong
enough to make itself heard over the hubbub without an exhausting
effort, and the talk that went on about him was too fast and too
fragmentary for his drawl to keep pace with it.
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