With these exceptions Mr. Hallett was the delight of the whole town, as
well as of all the farm-houses within six miles round. He just suited
the rich yeomanry, cured their diseases, and partook of their feasts;
was constant at christenings, and a man of prime importance at weddings.
A country merry-making was nothing without "the Doctor." He was "the
very prince of good fellows;" had a touch of epicurism, which, without
causing any distaste of his own homely fare, made dainties acceptable
when they fell in his way; was a most absolute carver; prided himself
upon a sauce of his own invention, for fish and game--"Hazelby sauce"
he called it; and was universally admitted to be the best compounder
of a bowl of punch in the county.

Besides these rare convivial accomplishments, his gay and jovial temper
rendered him the life of the table. There was no resisting his droll
faces, his droll stories, his jokes, his tricks, or his laugh--the most
contagious cachination that ever was heard. Nothing in the shape of fun
came amiss to him. He would join in a catch or roar out a solo, which
might be heard a mile off; would play at hunt the slipper or blind man's
buff; was a great man in a country dance, and upon very extraordinary
occasions would treat the company to a certain remarkable hornpipe,
which put the walls in danger of tumbling about their ears, and belonged
to him as exclusively as the Hazelby sauce. It was a sort of parody on a
pas seul which he had once seen at the Opera-house, in which his face,
his figure, his costume, his rich humour, and his strange, awkward,
unexpected activity, told amazingly. "The force of _frolic_ could no
farther go" than "the Doctor's hornpipe," It was the climax of jollity.

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