Page 225 - dubliners

topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates
and sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers and a glass
vase in which stood some tall celery stalks. In the centre
of the table there stood, as sentries to a fruit-stand which
upheld a pyramid of oranges and American apples, two
squat old-fashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing
port and the other dark sherry. On the closed square piano
a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in waiting and behind
it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and miner-
als, drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms,
the first two black, with brown and red labels, the third and
smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes.
Gabriel took his seat boldly at the head of the table and,
having looked to the edge of the carver, plunged his fork
firmly into the goose. He felt quite at ease now for he was an
expert carver and liked nothing better than to find himself
at the head of a well-laden table.
‘Miss Furlong, what shall I send you?’ he asked. ‘A wing
or a slice of the breast?’
‘Just a small slice of the breast.’
‘Miss Higgins, what for you?’
‘O, anything at all, Mr. Conroy.’
While Gabriel and Miss Daly exchanged plates of goose
and plates of ham and spiced beef Lily went from guest to
guest with a dish of hot floury potatoes wrapped in a white
napkin. This was Mary Jane’s idea and she had also sug-
gested apple sauce for the goose but Aunt Kate had said
that plain roast goose without any apple sauce had always
been good enough for her and she hoped she might never

225