owt. There were beef and mutton, and chickens and game, and ivery thing one could think of. I's sewer I were fair an' bet wi' it all; but what bet ma moast o' all were 'at we'd ivery one on us a small loaf lapped up i' a clout."
Liqueurs were handed round after dinner. Our good friend took his little glass of the, to him, unknown tipple, and after drinking it off at one gulp, and considering a while, turned round to the waiter and said, "John, bring us some o' this 'ere i' a moog."
At a club dinner, a wedding breakfast, or a funeral lunch, James was overflowing with anecdotes. He was generally the hero of his stories; but I do not believe that they all in reality happened to himself. The stories often told against the principal actor in them, and therefore he may have thought it legitimate to appropriate to himself tales which made him appear in a ludicrous light.
I can remember only a few of these stories.
"It was one night in November last that I and my wife Phœbe was sitting tawking i' t' house. It were a dark night, as black as Warren's best. Now I mun tell thee that our Rachel Anne—that's our grown up daughter—were at that age when they mostly likes to ha' a sweetheart, Shoo'd gotten a young man. I don't like to name names, but as we're all friends here, I don't mind saying he were a downright blackguard. It were old Greenwood's son, tha knaws; t' lad as were locked up by t' police for boiling a cat. Well, Rachel Anne were mad after him, and nother her mother nor I liked it. We were nicely put out, I promise you.
"To go on with my tale. Phœbe and I were sitting by t' fire, when all at once I ses to my old woman, 'Phœbe, lass, where's Rachel Anne? Shoo's not at home, I reckon.'
"'Nay, James, lad,' said she, 'shoo's at a confirmation class.'
