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Pauden Gair's Receipt how to make a Bad Dinner a Good One.
-- The Stranger finds Fenton as mysterious as Himself.
The stranger, on reaching the inn, had not long to wait for dinner, which, to his disappointment, was anything but what he had been taught to expect.

The fair "waiter" had led his imagination a very ludicrous dance, indeed, having, as Shakspeare says, kept the word of promise to his ear, but broken it to his hope, and, what was still worse, to his appetite.

On sitting down, he found before him two excellent salt herrings to begin with; and on ringing the bell to inquire why he was provided with such a dainty, the male waiter himself, who had finished the field he had been ploughing, made his appearance, after a delay of about five minutes, very coolly wiping his mouth, for he had been at dinner.
"Are you the waiter," asked the stranger, sharply.
"No, sir, I'm not the waiter, myself; but I and Peggy Moylan is." "And why didn't you come when I rang for you at first ?" "I was just finishin' my dinner, sir," replied the other, pulling a bone of a herring from between his teeth, then going over and deliberately throwing it into the fire.
The stranger was silent with astonishment, and, in truth, felt a stronger inclination to laugh than to scold him.

This fellow, thought he, is clearly an original; I must draw him out a little.
"Why, sir," he proceeded, "was I served with a pair of d--d salt herrings, as a part of my dinner ?" "Whist, sir," replied the fellow, "don't curse anything that God--blessed be his name--has made; it's not right, it's sinful." "But why was I served with two salt herrings, I ask again ?" "Why wor you sarved with them ?--Why, wasn't it what we had ourselves ?" "Was I not promised venison ?" "Who promised it to you ?" "That female waiter of yours." "Peggy Moylan?
Well, then, I tell you the fau't wasn't hers.