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The Kickleburys on the Rhine, by M.A. Titmarsh
The Kickleburys on the Rhine by MA Titmarsh Author:William Makepeace Thackeray Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: may overdraw her account, but of that, of course, I know nothing. When Lankin and I go down stairs to breakfast, we find, if not the best, at least the most c... more »onspicuous places in occupation of Lady Kicklebury's party, and the hulking London footman making a darkness in the cabin, as he stoops through it bearing cups and plates to his employers. [Why do they always put mud into coffee on board steamers ? Why does the tea generally taste of boiled boots ? Why is the milk scarce and thin ? And why do they have those bleeding legs of boiled mutton for dinner ? I ask why ? In the steamers of other nations you are well fed. Is il impossible that Britannia, who confessedly rules the waves, should attend to the victuals a little, and that meat should be well-cooked under a Union Jack ? I just put in this question, this most interesting question in a momentous parenthesis, and resum ethe tale.'J When Lankin and I descend to the cabin, then, the tables are full of gobbling people ; and, though there do seem to be a couple of places near Lady Kicklebury, immediately she sees our eyes directed to the inviting gap, she slides out, and with her ample robe, covers even more than that large spaceto which by art and nature she is entitled, and calling out " Horace, Horace," and nodding, and winking, and pointing, she causes her son-in-law to extend the wing on his side. We are cut of that chance of a breakfast. We shall have the tea at its third water, and those two damp black mutton chops which nobody else will take, will fall to our cold share. At this minute, a voice clear and sweet, from a tall lady in a black veil, says, "Mr. Titmarsh," and I start and murmur an ejaculation of respectful surprise, as I recognise no less a person than the Bight Honourable the Countess of Knights- b...« less