Behold, a new feature in the game! Barnacles wasn't beat yet. In the attempt to hoax Barnacles, allowance had not been made for his gastronomic powers, and previous privations. Never mind. The more sport.
"Mr Barnacles, a slice of the sirloin. Upper cut, or under cut?"
Barnacles, at the sight of the good things before him, contrary to all calculation sat up with renewed vigour, and paused ere he replied.
"Why, if I do take anything more, I think it must be a small slice of this mutton."
Barnacles helped himself. A small slice! Why, if he didn't cut away into the hind quarter, slice after slice, till he had sunk a regular well. Then spooned out the gravy.
"Give Mr Barnacles the currant jelly. Mr Gingham, we owe that to you."
"Plenty more at your service, sir," said Gingham; "got three or four dozen jars. Always bring some when I visit headquarters. Got it in Berkley Square."
Barnacles now sets to again, fresh as when he began. What powers! what capacity! what deglutition! In fact, it was not only the stomach of Barnacles that needed filling. And that's why you see carnivorous cadaverous men perform such extraordinary feats with knife and fork. Not their stomach merely, their system is hungry. So it was now with Barnacles; and his meal was on a commensurate scale. He was redressing the balance of his constitution--compensating previous inanition. When a man, accustomed to full feeding, has been a few days without it, it isn't the mere filling of his stomach that will satisfy his appetite.
Gingham caught the eye of one of the guests--slightly raised his glass--bowed.
"Oh yace," replied a squeaking voice; "now sall I trink you go t'hell!"
I started. When, when, had I heard that voice before? My eye, for the first time, took a particular view of the speaker. He was a diminutive personage, his complexion a sodden white, with unwholesome patches of red; forehead enormous and mis-shapen; bumps prominent and misplaced; large spectacles, no eyes, upper part of nose wanting, a notch where there should have been a bridge; lower limb of nose broad and sunken, as if squashed down between two puffy cheeks, which bagged on each side; between nose and mouth a space incredible; in fact, a huge upper lip was the most prominent feature of the face; for mustaches, a few detached and very coarse black bristles, pointing opposite ways like a cat's whiskers--each particular bristle standing alone, and individually discernible from its insertion to its extremity; mouth, long and sinuous; lips, viciously twisted out; chin, emaciated. Again he spoke, as Gingham drank to him: "You go t' hell!" Where _could_ I have heard that voice? Why, wasn't it at the ferry, among the Frenchmen that opposed our passage? No, no, that can't be; it's impossible.--"Who's that?" I whispered Gingham.