Mr.Grey pertinaciously refused to have it changed.
"Stare super vias antiquas," he had stoutly said when the proposition had been made to him; by which he had intended to imply that, as during the last twenty years he had been compelled to dine at half-past six instead of six, he did not mean to be driven any farther in the same direction.

Consequently his cook was compelled to prepare his dinner in such a manner that it might be eaten at one hour or the other, as chance would have it.
The dinner passed without much conversation other than incidental to Mr.Grey's wants and comforts.

His daughter knew that he had been at the office for eight hours, and knew also that he was not a young man.

Every kind of little cosseting was, therefore, applied to him.

There was a pheasant for dinner, and it was essentially necessary, in Dolly's opinion, that he should have first the wing, quite hot, and then the leg, also hot, and that the bread-sauce should be quite hot on the two occasions.