Passing Around The Fodder!


A DINNER SKETCH.





A few weeks ago, during a passage from Gotham to Boston, on the "Empire

State," one of the most elegant and swift steamers that ever man's

ingenuity put upon the waters, I met a well-known joker from the Quaker

city, on his first trip "down East." After mutually examining and

eulogising the external appearance and internal arrangements of the

"Empire," winding up our investi
ation, of course, with a look into a

small corner cupboard in the barber's office, where a superb smile--as

is a smile--can be usually enjoyed by the nobbish investment of a

York shilling; soon after passing through "Hell Gate"--gliding by the

beautiful villas, chateaux, and almost princely palaces of the business

men of the great city of New York, we were soon out upon the broad, deep

Sound, a glorious place for steam-boating. Soon after, the bells

announced "supper ready"--a general stampede into the spacious cabin

took place, and though the tables strung along forty rods on each side

of the great cabin, not over half the crowd got seats upon this

interesting occasion. I was about with my friend--in time, stuck our

legs under the mahogany, and gazed upon the open prospect for a supper

superb enough in all its details to tempt a jolly old friar from his

devotions. We got along very nicely. An old chap who sat above us some

seats, and whose rotund developments gave any ordinary observer reason

to suppose his appetite as unquenchable as the Maelstrom, kept reaching

about, and when tempting vessels were too remote, he'd bawl "right eout"

for them.



"Halloo! I say you, Mister there, just hand along that saas; give us a

chance, will ye, at that; notion on't, what d'ye call that stuff?"



"This?" says one, passing along a dish.



"Pshaw, no, t'other there."



"Oh! ah! yes, this," says my facetious friend.



"Well, that ain't it, but no odds; fetch it along!" and down we sent the

biggest dish of meat in our neighborhood.



"Now," says I, "my boy, I'll show you a 'dodge.' We'll see how it

works."



Filling a plate full to the brim, with all and each of the various

heavy courses in our vicinity, I very politely passed it over to my

next neighbor with--



"Please to pass that up, sir?"



"Umph, eh?" says the gentleman, taking hold of the plate very gingerly;

"pass it up?"



"Aye, yes, if you please," says I.



By this time he had fairly got the loaded plate in his fists, and began

to look about him where to pass the plate to. Nobody in particular

seemed on the watch for a spare plate. The gent looked back at me, but

I was "cutting away" and watching from the extreme corner of my left eye

the victim and his charge, while I pressed hard upon the corn pile of my

friend's foot under the table.



At length, the victim thought he saw some one up the table waiting for

the plate, and quickly he whispered to his next neighbor--



"Please, sir, to-to-a, just pass this plate up!"



The man took the plate, and being more of a practical operator than his

neighbor, gave the plate over to his next neighbor, with--



"Pass this plate up to that gentleman, if you please," dodging his head

towards an old gent in specs, who sat near the head of the table,

grinning a ghastly smile over the field of good things.



"It's going!"



"What?" says my friend.



"The plate; it's going the rounds; just you keep quiet, you'll see a

good thing."



The plate, at length, got to the head of the table. It was given to the

old gentleman in specs; he looked over the top of his specs very

deliberately at the "fodder," then back at the thin, pale,

student-looking youth who handed it to him, then up and down the table.

A raw-boned, gaunt and hollow-looking disciple caught the eye of the old

gent; he must be the man who wanted the "load." His lips quacked as if

in the act of--"pass this plate, sir,"--to his next neighbor; he was too

far off for us to hear his discourse. Well, the plate came booming

along down the opposite side; the tall man declined it and gave it over

to his next neighbor, who seemed a little tempted to take hold of the

invoice, but just then it occurred to him, probably, that he was keeping

somebody (!) out of his grub, so he quickly turned to his neighbor and

passed the plate. One or two more moves brought the plate within our

range, and there it liked to have stuck, for a fussy old Englishman,

in whom politeness did not stick out very prominently, grunted--



"I don't want it, sir."



"Well, but, sir, please pass it," says the last victim, beseechingly

holding out the plate.



"Pass it? Here, mister, 's your plate," says Bull, at length reluctantly

seizing on the plate, and rushing it on to his next neighbor, who

started--



"Not mine, sir."



"Not yours! Who does it belong to? Pass it down to somebody."



Off went the plate again. Several ladies turned up their pretty eyes and

noses while the gents passed it by them.



"Why, if there ain't that plate a going the rounds, that you gave me!"

says my next neighbor, to whom I had first given the "currency."



"That plate? Oh, yes, so it is; well," says I, with feigned

astonishment, "this is the first time I ever saw a good supper so

universally discarded!"



The plate was off again. It reached the foot of the table. An elderly

lady looked up, looked around, removed a large sweet potato from the

pile--then passed it along. An old salty-looking captain, just then took

a vacant seat, and the plate reached him just in the nick of time. He

looked voracious--



"Ah," said he, with a savage growl, "that's your sort; thunder and

oakum, I'm as peckish as a shark, and here's the duff for me!"



That ended the peregrinations of the plate, and I and my friend--yelled

right out!



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