Year: 1873

along the Regents Canal-One was
actually covered with n brown wig;
the crows feet were visible in the cor
ner of the eye; good old port and
warm Madeira carried it against
hock, claret, Burgundy and Cham
pagne-stews, hashes and ragOuls,
grew into favor; crusts were rarely
called for to relish the cheese after
dinner; conversation was less bOis-
ferrous, and it turned chiefly on poll
ties and the state of the funds, or
landed property; apologies were made
for coming i'm thick shoes and stock
ings the doors and windows were
more carefully provided with list and
sand bags; the fire in more request;
and q quiet game of whist filled up
the hours that We're wont to be de-
voted to drinking, singing ana riotous
merriment. The Iubbers, cup of
coffee and at home by eleven O'Clock,
was the usual cry, when the fifth or
sixth glass had gone round after the
cloth had been removed. AT parting,
too, there was now long ceremony
in the hall, buttoning up great coats,
tying on woolen comforters, fixing
silk handkerchiefs over the mouth
and up to the ears, and grasping
sturdy walking canes, to support un-
steady feet.


Their fiftieth anniversary had come
and Death had indeed been busy.
One had been killed by the overturn-
ing of the mail, in which he had taken
his place to be present at the dinner,
having purchased an estate in Mon
n; h
his family. And had undergone the
the terrible operation for the stone,
and expired beneath the knife-the
third had yielded up broken spirit
two years after the loss of an only sur
viving and beloved daughter-a fourth
was carried off in few days by the
cholera morbus--a fifth had breathed
his last the very morning he obtained
Judgment in his favor by the Lord
Chancellor, which had cost him his
last shilling nearly to get, and which,
afte u litigation of eighteen years,
declared him the rightful possessOr of
ten thousand a year-ten minutes af-
forwards he was no more. A sixth
had perished by the hand of a mid
night assassin, who broke into his
house for plumber, and sacrificed the
owner of it as he grasped cOnvulsively
q bundle of EXcheQuer bills, which the
robber was drawing from beneath his
pillow, where he knew they were ev-
cry night placed for better security.


-Four little old men, of withered APP
pearance and decrepit walk, with
cracked voices, and dim, rayless eyes,
sat down, by the mercy of Heaven (as
they themselves tremulously declared)
to celebrate for the fiftieth time the
first day Of the year, to observe the
frolic compact, which half a century
ago they entered into at the Star and
Garter at Richmond! Eight were in
their graves! Yet they chirped cheer
lily over their glass, though they could
scarcely carry it to their lips, ii more
than half full; and cracked their jokes,
though they articulated their words
with difficulty, and heard each other
with still greater difficulty. They
mumbled, they chattered, they laugh
ed, if a sort of strange wheeling might
be called a laugh-and when the
wines sent their icy blood in warmer
pulse through their veins, they talked
of their past as it were but yesterday
had slipped by them, and their future
as it were busy century that lay be-
fore them. ..


They were just the number for quiet
rubber of whist; and for three successive
years they sat down to one. The fourth
came and the rubber was played with
an open dummy; fifth, and whist
was no longer practicable; tWO could
play only at cribbage, and cribbage
was the game. But it was little more
than the mockery of play. Their
palsied hands could hardly hold, or
their fading sight distinguish the
cards, while their torpid faculties made
them dOze between each deal.


At length came the last dinner and
the survivor of the twelve, upon whose
head four-scOre and ten winters had
shOwered their snow, ate his solitary
meal. 1t so chanced it was at his
house and his table they had celebrat-
ed the first. In his celler, too, had re-
manned for eight and forty years, the
bottle which they had uncOrked, re-
cOrked, and which he was then to un-
cork again. 1t stood beside him.
With a feeble and reluctant grasp he
took the frail memorial" " of a youth
ful vow, and for a moment memory
was faithful to her office. She threw
open the long vista of buried years,
and his heart travelled through them
all. Their lusty and blithesOme spring;
their bright and fervid autumn; their
chill, but not too frozen winter. He
saw as in a mirror how one by one the
laughing companions of that merry
hour, at Richmond, had dropped into
eternity. He felt all the loneliness of
his condition, for he had eschewed
marriage, and in the veins of no living
creature ran a drop of blood whose
source was in his own! and he drained
the glass which he had filled, "tO the
memory of those who were gone"
the tears slowly trickled down the fur
rows Of his aged face.


He had thus fulfilled one part of his
VOW, and prepared himself to dis
charge the other, by sitting the usual
number of hours at the desOlate table.
With a heavy heart he resigned him
self to the gloom of his own thoughts,
lethargic sleep stole over him-his
head fell upon his bosom-confused
images crowded into his mind-he
babbled to himself-was silent-and
when his servant entered the room,
alarmed by the noise he heard, he
found his master stretched upon the
carpet at the foot of his easy chair out
of which he had slipped in an apoplec-
tic fit. He never spoke again nor
once opened his eyes, though the vital
spark was not extinct till the follow
ing day. And this was the LAST DIN
NER.


National Restaurant