Of these repasts I have no hard words to say; it is of the dinners we gave ourselves, and of the dinners which people in our rank of life gave to us, that I now bitterly complain.
Have you ever observed the remarkable adherence to set forms of speech which characterizes the talkers of arrant nonsense! Precisely the same sheepish following of one given example distinguishes the ordering of genteel dinners.
When we gave a dinner at home, we had gravy soup, turbot and lobster-sauce, haunch of mutton, boiled fowls and tongue, lukewarm oyster-patties and sticky curry for side-dishes; wild duck, cabinet-pudding, jelly, cream and tartlets.

All excellent things, except when you have to eat them continually.

We lived upon them entirely in the season.

Every one of our hospitable friends gave us a return dinner, which was a perfect copy of ours--just as ours was a perfect copy of theirs, last year.

They boiled what we boiled, and we roasted what they roasted.