The New Monthly Magazine/Volume 7/Dinner Company to Let

DINNER COMPANY TO LET.—A CARD.

Messrs. Clack and Caterer respectfully invite the attention of the dinner-giving department of the metropolis, to the following candid statement of facts.

It happens in London, every day, that gentlemen mount to sudden wealth by Spanish bonds, fluctuations of English stock, death of distant relations, and what not. When this event occurs, a carriage is bespoken, the ladies go to the Soho Bazaar, the father takes a house in Baker-street or Connaught-place, and the sons get blackballed at all the new clubs in the environs of the Haymarket. Yet still something is wanting. Like the Greek or Persian king (Messrs. Clack and Caterer will not be precise as to the nation) who pined to death in the midst of plenty, gentlemen thus jumping into high-life, from the abysses of Lower Thames-street and Saint Mary Axe, lament the lack of good dinner company. If they rely upon coffee-house society, their silver spoons are in jeopardy; and if they invite their own relations, they are ruined: nobody will come twice to such society. An uncle with an unpowdered pigtail, who prates of pepper and pimento: an aunt in a brown silk gown, who drinks every body's health; a son from Stockwell, who is silent when he ought to talk, accompanied by a wife, who talks when she ought to be silent, compose a species of society which may do very well at Kensington or Camden-town, but which, Messrs. Clack and Caterer confidently predict, can never take root west of Temple-bar. The consequence is that gentlemen thus circumstanced must "cut" their own relations, or nobody else will "come again." Singers may be hired at so much a-head: every body knows, to an odd sixpence, the price of "Non nobis, Domine," "Hail, Star of Brunswick," Glorious Apollo," and "Scots wha ha." Good set speakers for charity dinners may also be obtained, by inquiry at the bar of the tavern. These latter go through the routine of duty with a vast deal of decorum. They call the attention of the company in a particular manner to the present charity, leaving a blank for its name. They ascribe half of its success to the worthy treasurer, and the other half to the noble chairman, whose health they conclude with proposing, with three times three: and the accuracy of their ear enables them to cry "hip, hip, hip," nine times, interlarded at the third and sixth close with a hurrah! aided by a sharp yell which Messrs. Clack and Caterer have never been able to distinguish from the yelp of a trodden lapdog. All this is very well in its way, and it is not the wish of the advertisers to disparage such doings. Far from it: "live and let live" is their maxim. Many gentlemen by practice qualify themselves for public speakers; but good private-dinner company is still a desideratum.

Impressed with this truth, Messrs. Clack and Caterer, at a considerable expense, have provided, at their manufactory in Leicester-square, a choice assortment of good diners out of various prices, who, in clean white waistcoats, and at the shortest notice, will attend to enliven any dull gentleman's dull dinner-table. Messrs. Clack and Caterer are possessed of three silver-toned young barristers, who have their way to make in Lincoln's Inn. These gentlemen respectively and anxiously enquire after the health of any married lady's little Charlotte; ask when she last heard from Hastings; think they never saw curtains better hung in the whole course of their lives; tenderly caress the poodle that occupies the hearth-rug; and should its front teeth meet in their forefinger, will, for an additional trifle, exclaim, "Pretty little fellow! I don't wonder he's such a favourite." Messrs. Clack and Caterer are also provided with two unbeneficed clergymen, who have guaranteed a short grace, and undertake not to eat of the second course. These gentlemen tell a choice collection of good jokes, with a rigid abstinence from Joe Miller. They have various common-places at hand, which they can throw in when conversation flags. The one of them remarks that London begins to look dull in September, and that Waterloo-place is a great improvement; and the other observes, that Elliston has much beautified Drury-lane and that Kean's voice is apt to fail him in the fifth act. This kind of talk is not brilliant, but it wears well, and never provokes animosity.

Messrs. Clack and Caterer beg also to acquaint the nobility and gentry, that they have laid in a couple of quadrillers and three pair of parasites; who take children upon their knees in spite of tamarinds and Guava jelly; cut turbot into choice parallelograms; pat plain children on the head, and assure their mamma that their hair is not red but auburn; never meddle with the two long-necked bottles on the table; address half of their conversation to the lady of the house, and the other half to any deaf gentleman on their other side, who tilts his ear in the hollow of his hand. Should either of these personages be so far forgetful of his duty as to contradict a county member, introduce agricultural distress, or prove the cause of the present low prices; wonder what happened at Verona, or who wrote the Scotch novels; gentlemen are requested to write "bore" upon his back with a piece of chalk (which the butler had better be provided with), and then to return the offender to the advertisers, when the money will be paid back, deducting coach-hire. Cheap goods rarely turn out well. Some dinner-giving gentlemen have hired diners out at an inferior price; and what was lately the consequence at a Baronet's in Portland-place?—A Birmingham article of this sort entered the drawing-room with a hackney straw adhering to one stocking, and a pedicular ladder ascending the other. He drank twice of champagne; called for beer; had never heard that the opera opened without Angrisani; wondered why Miss Paton and Braham did not sing together (forgetting that all Great Russell-street and a part of the Piazza yawned between them); spilt red wine on the tablecloth, and tried to rectify the error by a smear of salt and Madeira; led the fish-cruets as bare as the pitchers of the Belides; and committed various other errors, which Messrs. Clack and Caterer scorn to enumerate. All this proceeds from not going to the best shops and paying accordingly.

Messrs. Clack and Caterer beg likewise to acquaint a liberal and candid public, that they have an unexceptionable assortment of three-day visitors, who go by the stage to villas from Saturday to Monday. These out-of-towners know all about Webb Hall and the drill-plough: take a hand at whist; never beat their host at billiards; have no objection to go to church; and are ready to look at improvements on being provided with thick shoes. If up hill, or through a copse of the party's own planting, a small additional sum will be required. For further particulars enquire at the warehouse in Leicester-square. If Messrs. Clack and Caterer give satisfaction, it is all they require; money is no object. Letters, post-paid, will be duly attended to.