How ever Acton and his noble friends had managed to smuggle upstairs, under their jackets, a pork-pie, a plum-cake, a bag of tarts, and a pound of biscuits, was a feat which, as Jack Vance remarked, "beat conjuring." Shortly after midnight the Triple Alliance wended their way to the "House of Lords," where they found the three other members quite ready to commence operations.

The good things were spread out on the top of a chest of drawers, and the company ranged themselves round on the available chairs and two adjacent beds, and commenced to enjoy the repast.
"Ah, well," sighed Acton, with his mouth full of pork-pie, "I'm rather glad for some things that I didn't get engaged.

It must be rather a bore having to spend all your money in rings and that sort of thing, instead of in grub; though I really think I'd have given up grub for Miss Eleanor." "I wonder," said Morris, who was of a more prosaic disposition, "how it is that it's always much jollier having a feed when you ought not to than at the proper time.

For instance, eating this pork-pie at a table, with knife and fork and a plate, wouldn't be a quarter the fun it is having it like we're doing now--cutting it with a razor out of Acton's dressing-case, and knowing that if we were cobbed we should get into a jolly row." "Talking about rows over feeds," said Acton, "my brother John is at Ronleigh College, and I remember, soon after he went there, he said they had a great spree in his dormitory.

One of the chaps had had a hamper sent him, and they smuggled the grub upstairs; and when they thought the coast was clear, they spread a sheet on the floor, and laid out the grub as if it were on a table-cloth.