they laid it aside while he had his dinner : an enormous horned cow spit-roasted and dressed with heaps of green and scarlet peppers with blackened skins , and also a great mound of mushrooms , for which he had acquired a taste in capetown ; meanwhile laurence sent his men to dinner and rowed over to the allegiance to have a final meal with riley , convivial though quiet ; they did not drink very much , and afterwards laurence gave him a last few letters for his mother and for jane roland , the official post having already been exchanged .