one o'clock
And last comes in old Major Jackson , smiling largely , squaring himself , and doing his courtesies in a firm but florid military style , and plainly pleased to find himself in good company and on the eve of a good dinner . And so our dinner-list is full . The party were just nine -- and it is wonderful what a row nine well-behaved people will contrive to make at a dinner-table . The inferior animals -- as we see them caged and cared for , and fed at one o'clock , ` precise , ' in those public institutions provided for their maintenance -- confine their uproar to the period immediately antecedent to their meal , and perform the actual process of deglutition with silent attention , and only such suckings , lappings , and crunchings , as illustrate their industry and content . It is the distinctive privilege of man to exert his voice during his repast , and to indulge also in those specially human cachinnations which no lower creature , except that disreputable Australian biped known as the ` laughing jackass , ' presumes to imitate ; and to these vocal exercises of the feasters respond the endless ring and tinkle of knife and fork on china plate , and the ministering angels in white chokers behind the chairs , those murmured solicitations which hum round and round the ears of the revellers . Of course , when great guns are present , and people talk _ pro bono publico _ , one at a time , with parliamentary regularity , things are different ; but at an ordinary symposium , when the garrulous and diffident make merry together , and people break into twos or threes and talk across the table , or into their neighbours ' ears , and all together , the noise is not only exhilarating and peculiar , but sometimes perfectly unaccountable . The talk , of course , has its paroxysms and its subsidences .