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"Poor Man of Mutton."
ОглавлениеThis is a term applied to the remains of a shoulder of mutton, which, after it has done its regular duty as a roast at dinner, makes its appearance as a broiled bone at supper or upon the next day.
The late Earl of B., popularly known by the name of Old Rag, being indisposed at an hotel in London, the landlord came to enumerate the good things he had in his larder, hoping to prevail on his guest to eat something. The Earl, at length, starting suddenly from his couch, and throwing back a tartan nightgown, which had covered his singularly grim and ghastly face, replied to his host's courtesy:—"Landlord, I think I could eat a morsel of a poor man." Boniface, surprised alike at the extreme ugliness of Lord B.'s countenance and the nature of the proposal, retreated from the room, and tumbled down-stairs precipitately, having no doubt that this barbaric chief when at home was in the habit of eating a joint of a tenant or vassal when his appetite was dainty.—Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary.