_Grumb_. Then the cold plates your gravy froze on!
_Cheer_. My good fellow, who ever heard of hot plates on a picnic?
_Grumb_. How about the vegetables then, that never came to table
except to make believe there was something in the Irish stew? or what
do you call the thing they sometimes served out for butter?
_Cheer_. Ah! well! "a rose by any other name"--you know the rest. But
still, the commissariat isn't bad because the butter was so sometimes.
_Grumb_. Oh! of course, you can say the Commissariat (if you spell it
with a big C) doesn't mean the meat, or the soup, or the puddings, or
the greens, or the butter, or the coals, or the rest of it--but if it
isn't these, I should like to know what it is.
_Cheer_. (_loftily_). My good friend, it is easy for you to say this
thing or the other was not to your fancy, but it was not quite so easy
a matter for our landlord to provide a daily supply of meat, bread,
and dairy stuff for some four hundred people; especially as it had to
be organised for the occasion, without previous experience.
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