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Outwardly she was as gay as ever, and when the walk was over, led the party on a foraging expedition to the pantry. Rob and Phil were almost uproarious in their merriment now, and, as they devoured cold baked ham, pickles, cheese, beaten biscuit, and cake, they had a fencing-match with carving-knives, and gave a ridiculous parody of the balcony scene in "Romeo and Juliet."
Westman published "The Spoon: Primitive, Egyptian, Roman, Mediaeval and Modern," with one hundred illustrations, in an octavo volume. The luxury of carving-knives was, even in the closing years of the fifteenth century, reserved for royalty and nobility; for in the "Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VII.," under 1497, a pair is said to have cost £1 6s. 8d. of money of that day.
At intervals the assembled gourmands would simultaneously bend their eyes upon it; and an energetic sharpening of carving-knives and poising of forks would spring up with a synchronous shuffling of plates. Slashing would sometimes follow, and slices were served round with more or less impartiality and contentment.
Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other's live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn the whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea.
Him and his carving-knives!" But Mr. Jerry was far from easy about his friend, who seemed to him over-confident.
If the look of a thorough ruffian, much unwashed, with the spear just mentioned, a matchlock, and an assortment round his waist of what resembled carving-knives and skewers, was to be my sufficient defence in time of trouble, I was well provided for. However it was to be explained, no harm came to me anywhere on my march.
"Breakfast with the devil!" cried the old man, indignantly "sooner would I sit down to table in social companionship with with Jew Mike himself!" and as he uttered these words, he gazed keenly into the other's countenance. Tickels started, and turned deadly pale; the Corporal, with a sarcastic smile, bowed with mock politeness, and withdrew. "Swords and carving-knives!
Serve small portions, and then, if more be desired, help again. In carving large rump steaks or round steaks, cut always across the grain, in narrow strips. Carving-knives are always sharper than table-knives, and should do the work of cutting the fibres of the meat; then the short fibres may easily be separated by one's own knife.
Sir Arthur was speaking, when they sat down to dinner, of a new carving knife, which he lately had had made for his sister. The attorney immediately went from carving-knives to poultry; thence to butcher's meat. Some joints, he observed, were much more difficult to carve than others. He never saw a man carve better than the gentleman opposite him, who was the curate of the parish.
On the table nearest the door should be the carving-knives and the first dinner-plates to be used. Here the head footman or the butler divides the fish and carves the piece de resistance, the fillet of beef, the haunch of venison, the turkey, or the saddle of mutton.
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