A barbecue and burgoo of the Three Hours for Lunch Club was held, the club's medical adviser acting as burgoomaster and Mr. Lawton Mackall, the managing director, as jest of honour. The news that Lawton was at large spread rapidly through the city, and the club was trailed for some distance by an infuriated agent of the Society for the Deracination of Puns. But Lawton managed to kick over his traces, and the club safely gained the quiet haven of a Cedar Street chophouse. Here, when the members were duly squeezed into a stall, the Doctor gazed cheerfully upon Endymion and the Secretary who held the inward places. "Now is my chance," he cried, "to kill two bards with one stone."  
Lawton, says the stenographic report, was in excellent[130] form, and committed a good deal of unforgivable syntax. He was somewhat apprehensive when he saw the bill of fare inscribed "Ye Olde Chop House," for he asserts that the use of the word "Ye" always involves extra overhead expense—and a quotation from Shakespeare on the back of the menu, he doubted, might mean a couvert charge. But he was distinctly cheered when the kidneys and bacon arrived—a long strip of bacon gloriously balanced on four very spherical and well-lubricated kidneys. Smiling demurely, even blandly, Lawton rolled his sheave of bacon to and fro upon its kidneys. "This is the first time I ever saw bacon with ball bearings," he ejaculated. He gazed with the eye of a connoisseur upon the rather candid works of art hanging over the club's corner. He said they reminded him of Mr. Coles Phillips's calf-tones. The Doctor was speaking of having read an interesting dispatch by Mr. Grasty in the Times. "I understand," said Lawton, "that he is going to collect some of his articles in a book, to be called 'Leaves of Grasty'."
 
Duly ambered with strict and cloudy cider, the meal progressed, served with humorous comments by the waitress whom the club calls the Venus of Mealo. The motto of the club is Tres Horas Non Numero Nisi Serenas, and as the afternoon was still juvenile the gathering was tra............