reduced potential judges and incipient statesmen to helpless imbecility. Prime ministers-to-be, generals of the future, and admirals of the next generation had lost their bearings and their equilibrium as a result of the good fare, liquid fare, that is, dispensed by the immortal Bungem.
Colonial governors, viceroys, and archbishops could have recalled uproarious nights spent beneath the hospitable roof of Bungem's, had their memories not been subject to severe censorship.
Framed above the head of the table was the quatrain, written by a future Poet Laureate, that was the pride of Bungem's heart:
"Take from me all I have: my friends.
My songs, for no one's ever sung 'em;
One crowded hour of glorious life
I crave, but let it be with Bungem."
Never had Bungem's presented so gay and glorious an appearance as on the Wednesday evening of the famous supper to Josiah Williams.
Applications for tickets had poured in upon the Dinner Committee hastily organised by the men of St. Joseph's. Many ideas, in which originality and insanity were happily blended, had been offered to the Committee. One man had even suggested that the waiters should be dressed as kangaroos; but the idea had been discarded owing to the difficulty of jumping with plates of soup. Another suggestion had
