#nedsherrin

"Having an appointment at a city tavern one day, [English stage actor Charles Mathews] was shown into the commercial room, where a traveler was regaling himself upon boiled beef. Casting his eyes upon the table, he observed he was not using mustard; this put him into a fidget. He took up a newspaper and tried to read, but spite of him his eyes would wander in the direction of that mustardless plate. At length he could endure it no longer. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said in his mildest accents, "I don't think you are aware that you have no mustard?" The man stared, nodded, and went on with his meal. Mathews again took up the newspaper; but again the abnormal sight irritated him beyond endurance, and advancing to the table and slapping it with his hand, he called out sharply, "Are—you—aware—sir, that you are eating beef without mustard?" Again the man stared without deigning a reply. This was more than Mathews could stand. Rushing to the side-board, he snatched up a mustard pot, and clapped it down in front of him with, "By ***, you SHALL take mustard!" But he did not, and Mathews in a towering passion summoned the waiter, and desired to be shown into another room, remarking that he had never been in the company of such a disgusting savage before, and that he was quite sick at the revolting sight."

  ~Henry Barton Baker, Our Old Actors, 1878