The time is not very long since, though to-day is so changed. As we think
of it, the kind familiar faces rise up, and we hear the pleasant voices
and singing. There are they met, the honest hearty companions. In the
days when the Haunt was a haunt, stage-coaches were not yet quite over.
Casinos were not invented: clubs were rather rare luxuries: there were
sanded floors, triangular sawdust-boxes, pipes, and tavern parlours.
Young Smith and Brown, from the Temple, did not go from chambers to dine
at the Polyanthus, or the Megatherium, off potage a la Bisque, turbot au
gratin, cotelettes a la What-do-you-call-'em, and a pint of St. Emilion;
but ordered their beefsteak and pint of port from the "plump head-waiter
at the Cock;" did not disdain the pit of the theatre; and for a supper a
homely refection at the tavern. How delightful are the suppers in Charles
Lamb to read of even now!--the cards--the punch--the candles to be
snuffed--the social oysters--the modest cheer! Whoever snuffs a candle
now? What man has a domestic supper whose dinner-hour is eight o'clock?
Those little meetings, in the memory of many of us yet, are gone quite
away into the past.
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