PRINCE HENRY. _Belike then my appetite was not princely got_; _for_,
_by my troth_, _I do now remember the poor creature_, _small beer_.
_But_, _indeed_, _these humble considerations make me out of love with
my greatness_.

2 HENRY IV.

"Who ought to take the command, in the event of anything happening to
your lordship?" asked Wellington's officers on an occasion in the
Peninsular War. "Beresford," the great strategist answered, after
reflection. And then, in answer to their surprised looks: "If it were a
question of handling troops, some of you fellows might do as well,
perhaps better than he; but what we now want is someone to _feed_ our
men." {46}

This story, and the countenance of the epic and royal personages of our
mottoes, is our excuse for passing on to treat of the ignoble topic of
knives and forks, and to describe how three times a day our colony was
fed. It is a topic which could not be left outside a narrative which
seeks to "show how fields were won."

If our readers will follow the master of the week as he makes his round
of the tea-tables at a quarter to seven on a winter evening, he will
witness a cheerful scene not wanting in picturesqueness. The vista of
the corridor is filled with three very long and very narrow tables, and
the boys of as many houses seated at them. The subdued light, which
streams from numerous but feeble oil-lamps through the atmosphere of
fragrant vapour steamed up by the tea-urns, falls with Rembrandtesque
contrast of light and shadow on the long ranks of faces. There is that