Describe the use of irony and humour in ‘The Luncheon’.

The story is built on irony: the lady repeatedly claims that she eats only one thing and does not believe in overloading her stomach, yet she orders the most expensive dishes one after another. She advises the narrator, who has eaten only a cheap chop, not to eat a heavy lunch. She thinks him mean for leaving a small tip, not knowing he has spent all his money on her. The humour comes from the contrast between her words and actions, the narrator’s silent panic and polite generosity, his witty retort ‘I’ll eat nothing for dinner tonight’, and the final twist that she now weighs twenty-one stone.