One vegetable—brought on in state, and all alone—usually insipid lentils, or string beans, or indifferent asparagus.
Roast chicken, as tasteless as paper.
Lettuce-salad—tolerably good.
Decayed strawberries or cherries.
Sometimes the apricots and figs are fresh, but this is no advantage, as these fruits are of no account anyway.
The grapes are generally good, and sometimes there is a tolerably good peach, by mistake.
The variations of the above bill are trifling. After a fortnight one discovers that the variations are only apparent, not real; in the third week you get what you had the first, and in the fourth week you get what you had the second. Three or four months of this weary sameness will kill the robustest appetite.
It has now been many months, at the present writing, since I have had a nourishing meal, but I shall soon have one,—a modest, private affair, all to myself. I have selected a few dishes, and made out a little bill of fare, which will go home in the steamer that precedes me, and be hot when I arrive—as follows:
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