"But you, my friend--how can you possibly have been spending your time? I
was kept awake all last night, by thinking what you could have for
dinner. Fish is out of the question in the country; chickens die of the
pip every where but in London; game is out of season; it is impossible to
send to Gibblet's for meat; it is equally impossible to get it any where
else; and as for the only two natural productions of the country,
vegetables and eggs, I need no extraordinary penetration, to be certain,
that your cook cannot transmute the latter into an omelette aux huitres,
on the former into legumes a la creme.

"Thus, you see, by a series of undeniable demonstrations, you must
absolutely be in a state of starvation. At this thought, the tears rush
into my eyes: for heaven's sake, for my sake, for your own sake, but
above all, for the sake of the chevreuil, hasten to London. I figure you
to myself in the last stage of atrophy--airy as a trifle, thin as the
ghost of a greyhound.

"I need say no more on the subject. I may rely on your own discretion, to
procure me the immediate pleasure of your company. Indeed, were I to
dwell longer on your melancholy situation, my feelings would overcome me-
-Mais, revenons a nos moutons--(a most pertinent phrase, by the by--oh!
the French excel us in every thing, from the paramount science of
cookery, to the little art of conversation.)

"You must tell me your candid, your unbiassed, your deliberate opinion of
chevreuil. For my part, I should not wonder at the mythology of the
northern heathen nations, which places hunting among the chief enjoyments
of their heaven, were chevreuil the object of their chace; but nihil est
omni parte beatum, it wants fat, my dear Pelham, it wants fat: nor do I
see how to remedy this defect; for were we by art to supply the fat, we