The English Spy, page 419 by Bernard Blackmantle
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for her grose de Naples."
"Not towards me, if you please, Mr. Deputy," simpered out Miss Marigold, "because thereby hangs a tail, i.e. (tale)."
"That's my Biddy's ultimatum," said the alderman; "she never makes more than one good joke a day."
"If they are all as good as the last, they deserve the benefit of frequent resurrection, alderman."
"Why so, Mr. Blackmantle?"
"Because they will have the merit of being very funny upon a very grave subject--jeu d'esprits upon our latter end."
"Could you make room for three more gentlemen?" said the waiter, ushering in three woe-begone knights of the trencher, who, having heard the fatal clock strike when at the bottom of the hill, and knowing the punctuality of the house, had toiled upwards with breathless anxiety to be present at the first attack, and arrived at the end of the second course, just in time to be too late. "Confound all clocks and clockmakers! set my watch by Bishopsgate church, and made sure I was a quarter too fast." "Very sorry, gentlemen, very sorry, indeed," said Boniface; "nothing left that is eatable--not a chop or a steak in the house; but there is an excellent ordinary at the Spaniards, about a mile further down the lane; always half an hour later than ours." "Ay, it's a grievous affair, landlord; but howsomdever, if there's nothing to eat, why we must go: we meant to have done you justice to-day--but never mind, we'll be in time for you another Sunday, old gentleman, depend upon it; "and with this significant promise the three hungariansdeparted, not a little disappointed.
"Those three men are no ordinary customers," said our host; "they have done us the honour to dine here before, and what is more, of leaving nothing behind; one of them is the celebrated Yorkshireman, Tom ~98~~Cornish, whom General Picton pitted against a Hanoverian glutton to eat for a fortnight, and found, at the end