CHAPTER IV

THE HUNT BALL

Joy, universal joy, prevailed at Handley Cross, when it became known that a committee of management had undertaken to hunt the Vale of Sheepwash. The place had not had such a fillip before—farmers looked at their fields and their stacks, and calculated the consumption of corn.

Duncan Nevin took a six-stalled stable, and putting a splendid sign of a fox peeping over a rock at some rabbits, christened it the

Emboldened by success, he scraped together five-and-twenty pounds, and asked everybody he met if he could tell him of a horse for the field. No one with money need long want a horse, but Duncan saw so differently when purchasing, to what he did when selling, that he seemed to have two pair of eyes. To be sure, he was a good judge of a tail, and that, for a watering-place job-master, is something—“Don’t tell me what Tattersall says about rat-tails,” he used to observe, “I like them full, fine, and long. A horse with a full tail looks well in the field, on the road, or in harness, and will always bring his price.”

His first purchase was an old Roman-nosed, white-faced, white-stockinged, brown horse, that had carried the huntsman of a pack of harriers for many a year, and was known by the distinguished name of Bull-dog. He was a little, well-shaped, but remarkably ugly horse, and had a rheumatic affection in one of his hind legs, that caused him to limp, and occasionally go on three legs. He was never fast, and sixteen or seventeen years had somewhat slackened the pace of his youth; but he was a remarkably hard-constitutioned animal, that no one could drive beyond his speed, and he could creep through or leap almost anything he was put to.

The harriers being done up, the subscribers had handsomely presented the huntsman with his horse, which he came to offer Duncan Nevin for his stud. “He’s varrar like the field,” observed Nevin, eyeing him, “but his tail’s shocking shabby, more like a worn-out whitenin’-brush than anything else—our customers require them handsome—I fear he would only do for the field—I want them generally useful.”

The huntsman declared he would go twice a-week all the season, and offered to leap him over a gate. This he did so well, that Duncan Nevin priced him—fifteen pounds was all he asked, and he bought him for ten.

A sixteen hands bad bay mare, with a very large head, very light middle, and tail down to the hocks, was his next purchase for the field. She was a showy, washy, useless beast, that could caper round a corner or gallop half-mile heats, if allowed plenty of breathing time, but invariably pulled off her shoes at her leaps, and was a whistler to boot—she cut behind and dished before—still she had an undeniable tail, and her size, and great hocks, as she stood well clothed and littered, gave her the appearance of a hunter. She was six years old, had never done any work—because she never could, and in all probability never would. The wags christened her Sontag, on account of her musical powers.

Fair Rosamond, a little cantering up and down white hack, stood in the third stall; and when all the three fly-horses were in, which was never except at night, the six-stall stable was full. The news of the purchases flew like lightning; the number was soon magnified into ten—crowds besieged the mews to learn the terms, and the secretary wrote to know what Nevin meant to give to the hunt.

Everything now looked cheerful and bright—the hounds were the finest playthings in the world—they furnished occupation morning, noon, and night. Every man that was ever known to have been on horseback was invited to qualify for wearing the unrivalled uniform. Names came rolling in rapidly—the farmers, to the number of fifteen, sent in their five and ten pound notes, while the visitors were extremely liberal with their names, especially on a representation from Fleeceall, that payment might be made at their convenience—their names, the honour of their names, in short, being the principal thing the committee looked to. Dennis O’Brien put his down for five-and-twenty guineas, Romeo Simpkins did the same for five, Abel Snorem promised “to see what he could do,” and all wrote, either promisingly, encouragingly, or kindly.

Duncan Nevin converted a stable into a kennel and feeding-house, and gave up his wife’s drying-ground for an airing yard, into which the poor hounds were getting constantly turned from their comfortable benches, by one or other of the committee showing them off to his friends. Then the make, shape, and colour of every hound was discussed, and what some thought defects, others considered beauties. The kennel was pretty strong in numbers, for all the worn-out, blear-eyed hounds were scraped together from all parts of the Vale, to make a show; while a white terrier, with a black patch on his eye—who was re-christened “Mr. Fleeceall”—and an elegantly-clipped, curled, dressed, and arranged black French poodle, were engaged to attract the ladies, who seldom have any taste for foxhounds. Every allurement was resorted to, to draw company.

Poor Peter soon began to feel the change of service. Instead of Michael Hardey’s friendly intercourse, almost of equality, he was ordered here, there, and everywhere, by his numerous masters; it was Peter here, Peter there, and Peter everywhere, no two masters agreeing in orders. Smith would have the hounds exercised by daybreak; Barnington liked them to go out at noon, so that he could ride with them, and get them to know him; and Dumpling thought the cool of the evening the pleasantest time. Then Barnington would direct Peter to go on the north road, to make the hounds handy among carriages, while Dumpling, perhaps, would write to have them brought south, to trot about the downs, and get them steady among mutton; while Smith grumbled, and muttered something about “blockheads”—“knowing nothing about it.” Each committee-man had his coterie, with whom he criticized the conduct of his colleagues.

Autumn “browned the beech,” but the season being backwardly, and the managers not exactly agreeing in the choice of a whipper-in, the ceremony of cub-hunting was dispensed with, and Peter, with the aid of Barnington’s groom, who had lived as a stable-boy with a master of hounds, was ordered to exercise the pack among the deer parks and preserves in the neighbourhood. November at length approached; the latest packs began to advertise; and Kirbygate stood forth for the Melton hounds on the Monday. All then was anxiety! Saddlers’ shops were thronged at all hours. Griffith, the prince of whip-makers, opened an establishment containing every possible variety of hunting-whip; and Latchford appointed an agent for the sale of his “persuaders.” Ladies busied themselves with plaiting hat-cords for their favourites, and the low green chair at the boot-maker’s was constantly occupied by some gentleman with his leg cocked in the air, as if he had taken a fit, getting measured for “a pair of tops.”

How to commence the season most brilliantly was the question, and a most difficult one it was. Dumpling thought a “flare-up” of fireworks over-night would be a flash thing; Round-the-corner Smith was all for a hunt dinner; and after due discussion and the same happy difference of opinion that had characterized all their other consultations, Captain Doleful recommended a ball, in the delusive hope that it would have the effect of making friends and getting subscribers to the hounds, and be done, as all contemplated acts are, at a very trifling expense. There was no occasion to give a supper, he said; refreshments—tea, coffee, ices, lemonade, and negus, handed on trays, or set out in the ante-room, would be amply sufficient, nor was there any necessity for asking any one from whom they did not expect something in the way of support to the hounds. Round-the-corner Smith did not jump at the proposal, having been caught in a similar speculation of giving a ball to a limited party at Bath, and had been severely mulcted in the settling; but Barnington stood in too wholesome a dread of his wife to venture any opposition to such a measure; and Stephen Dumpling merged his fears in the honour and the hopes of making it pay indirectly by gaining subscribers to the hounds. The majority carried it; and Captain Doleful spread the news like wildfire—of course, taking all the credit of the thing to himself.

What a bustle it created in Handley Cross! The poor milliner-girls stitched their fingers into holes, and nothing was seen at the tailors’ windows but sky-blue coats lined with pink silk, and canary-coloured shorts. The thing looked well, for fourteen candidates appeared, all ready to owe their three guineas for the honour of wearing the uniform, or for the purpose of getting their wives and daughters invited to the ball. It was fixed for the first Monday in November, and it was arranged that the hounds should meet in the neighbourhood on the following day.

Meanwhile the committee of management and Doleful met every morning for the purpose of making arrangements, sending invitations, and replying to applications for tickets. The thing soon began to assume a serious aspect; the names which at first amounted to fifty had swelled into a hundred and thirteen, and each day brought a more numerous accession of strength than its predecessor. Round-the-corner Smith’s face lengthened as the lists of guests increased, and Dumpling began to have his doubts about the safety of the speculation. Barnington took it very easily, for he had plenty of money, and the excitement kept his peevish wife in occupation; and she, moreover, had plenty of friends, whom she kept showering in upon them at a most unmerciful rate. Every morning a footman in red plush breeches and a short jacket arrived with names to be put down for invitations. Doleful was in great favour with her, and by her request he took his place every morning at the table of the committee-room to keep her husband “right” as she called it. Of course, with such incongruous materials to work with, the thing was not arranged without great difficulty and dissension. Dumpling put down his cousins, the three Miss Dobbses, whose father was a farmer and brewer; and making pretty good stuff, “Dobbs’s Ale” was familiar at Handley Cross, and his name occupied divers conspicuous signs about the town. To these ladies Mrs. Barnington demurred, having no notion of “dancing in a hop-garden;” and it was with the greatest difficulty, and only on the urgent representation of Doleful, that their rejection would cause the secession of Dumpling, that she consented to their coming. To divers others she took similar objections, many being too low, and some few too high for her, and being the daughter of a Leeds manufacturer, she could not, of course, bear the idea of anything connected with trade.

At the adjournment of each meeting, Doleful repaired to her and reported progress, carrying with him a list of invitations, acceptances, and refusals, with a prospectus of those they thought of inviting. These latter underwent a rigid scrutiny by Mrs. Barnington, in aid of which all Doleful’s local knowledge, together with Mrs. Fribble’s millinery knowledge, Debrett’s Baronetage, and Burke’s Landed Gentry of England, were called together, and the list was reduced by striking out names with an elegant gold pencil-case with an amethyst seal, as she languished out her length on a chaise-longue. One hundred and fifty-three acceptances, and nineteen invitations out, were at length reported the strength of the party; and Mrs. Barnington, after a few thoughtful moments passed in contemplating the ceiling, expressed her opinion that there ought to be a regular supper, and desired Doleful to tell Barnington that he must do the thing as it ought to be, if it were only for her credit. Poor Doleful looked miserable at the mention of such a thing, for Smith and Dumpling had already begun to grumble and complain at the magnitude of the affair, which they had expected would have been a mere snug party among the members of the hunt and their friends, instead of beating up for recruits all the country round. Doleful, however, like a skilful militia-man, accomplished his object by gaining Dumpling over first, which he did by pointing out what an admirable opportunity it was for a handsome young man like himself, just beginning life, to get into good society, and perhaps marry an heiress; and Dumpling being rather a pudding-headed sort of fellow, saw it exactly in that light, and agreed to support Doleful’s motion, on the assurance that it made very little difference in the expense whether the eatables were set out lengthways on a table and called “supper,” or handed about all the evening under the name of “refreshments.” Indeed, Doleful thought the supper might be the cheaper of the two, inasmuch as it would prevent the pilfering of servants, and the repeated attacks of the hungry water-drinking guests.

This matter settled, then came the fluttering and chopping-off of chickens’ heads, the wringing of turkeys’ necks, the soaking of tongues, the larding of hams, the plucking of pheasants, the skewering of partridges, the squeezing of lemons, the whipping of creams, the stiffening of jellies, the crossing of open tarts, the colouring of custards, the shaping of blancmange, the making of macaroons, the stewing of pears—all the cares and concomitants of ball-making and rout-giving; and Spain, the “Gunter” of the place, wrote off to London for four-and-twenty sponge-cake foxes, with canary-coloured rosettes for tags to their brushes.

The great, the important night at length arrived. The sun went down amidst a brilliant halo of purple light, illuminating the sky with a goodly promise of the coming day, but all minds were absorbed in the events of the evening, and for once the poet’s “gay to-morrow of the mind” was disregarded. Every fly in the town was engaged nine deep, and Thompson and Fleuris, the opposition London and Parisian perruquiers, had dressed forty ladies each before five. Towards dusk, young gentlemen whose hair “curled naturally” came skulking into their shops to get the “points taken off”; after which, quite unconsciously, the irons were “run through,” and the apprentice boys made door-mats of their heads by wiping their dirty hands upon them, under pretence of putting a little “moisture in”; while sundry pretty maids kept handling little paste-board boxes over the counter, with whispered intimations that “it was wanted in time to dress for the ball.” Master tailors sat with their workmen, urging their needles to the plenitude of their pace; and at dinner-time there were only three gentlemen in all the place minus the canary-coloured inexpressibles, and one whose sky-blue coat could not be lined until the Lily-white-sand train brought down a fresh supply of pink silk from town.

Doleful began dyeing his hair at three, and by five had it as dark as Warren’s blacking. Mrs. Barnington did not rise until after the latter hour, having breakfasted in bed; and young ladies, having taken quiet walks into the fields with their mammas in the morning to get up complexions and receive instructions whom to repress and whom to encourage, sat without books or work, for fear of tarnishing the lustre of their eyes.

Night drew on—a death-like stillness reigned around, broken only by the occasional joke of a stationary fly-man, or the passing jibe of a messenger from the baker’s, tailor’s, or milliner’s. The lower rooms of all the houses at length became deserted, and lights glimmered only in the upper stories, as though the inhabitants of Handley Cross were retiring to early rest.

Again, as if by general consent, the lights descended, and in drawing-rooms where the blinds had not been drawn or curtains closed, those who stood in the streets might see elegantly dressed young ladies entering with flat candlesticks in their hands, and taking their places before the fire, with perhaps a satin-slippered foot on the fender, waiting with palpitating hearts for their flys, anxious for the arrival of the appointed time, dreading to be early, yet afraid to be late. Wheels had been heard, but they had only been “taking up,” none as yet having started for the ball. At length the clatter of iron steps, the banging of doors, and the superfluous cry of “Rooms!” resounded through the town, and the streets became redolent of animal life.

A line of carriages and flys was soon formed in Bramber Street, and Hector Hardman, the head constable, with his gilt-headed staff in his hand, had terrible difficulty in keeping order, and the horses’ heads and carriage poles in their places. Vehicles from all quarters and of every description came pouring in, and the greetings of the post-boys from a distance, the slangings of the fly-men, with the dictatorial tones of gentlemen’s coachmen and footmen, joined with the cries of the rabble round the door, as the sky-blue coats with pink silk linings popped out, resembled the noise and hubbub of the opera colonnade when a heavy shower greets the departing company.

The “Ongar Rooms” were just finished, and with the exception of a charity bazaar for the purpose of establishing a Sunday school at Sierra Leone, had never been used. They were a handsome suite of rooms on the ground floor, entered from the street by two or three stone steps, under a temporary canopy encircled with evergreens and variegated lamps. From the entrance-hall, in which at each end a good fire blazed, two rooms branched off, one for gentlemen’s cloaks, the other for ladies. Immediately in front of the entrance, scarlet folding-doors with round panes opened into a well-proportioned ante-room, which again led into the ball-room.

Ranged in a circle before the folding-doors, stood Barnington, Smith, Doleful, and Dumpling, all grinning, and dressed in sky-blue coats with pink linings, white waistcoats, canary-coloured shorts, and white silk stockings, except Doleful, who had on a crumpled pair of nankeen trousers, cut out over the instep, and puckered round the waist. Dumpling’s dress was very good, and would have been perfect, had he not sported a pair of half dirty yellow leather gloves, and a shabby black neckcloth with red ends. There they all stood grinning and bowing as the entrances were effected, and Doleful introduced their numerous friends with whom they had not the happiness of a previous acquaintance. The plot soon thickened so much, that after bowing their heads like Chinese mandarins to several successive parties who came pushing their way into the room without receiving any salutation in return, and the blue coats with pink lining becoming too numerous to afford any distinguishing mark to the visitors, our managers and master of the ceremonies got carried into the middle of the room, after which the company came elbowing in at their ease, making up to their mutual friends as though it were a public assembly.

The fiddlers next began scraping their instruments in the orchestra of the ball-room like horses anxious to be off, and divers puffs of the horn and bassoon sounded through the building, but still the doors remained closed, and Doleful cast many a longing, anxious eye towards the folding-doors. Need we say for whom he looked?—Mrs. Barnington had not arrived. The music at length burst forth in good earnest, and Doleful, after numerous inquiries being made of him why the ball did not commence, at length asked Barnington if he thought his good lady was coming; when most opportunely, a buzz and noise were heard outside—the folding-doors flew open, and in Mrs. Barnington sailed, with her niece, Miss Rider, on her arm.

Mrs. Barnington was a fine, tall, languishing-looking woman, somewhat getting on in years, but with marked remains of beauty, “sicklied o’er with the pale cast” of listlessness, produced by a mind unoccupied, and bodily strength unexercised. Her features were full-sized, good, and regular, her complexion clear, with dark eyes that sparkled when lighted with animation, but more generally reposed in a vacant stare whether she was engaged in conversation or not. She wore a splendid tiara of diamonds, with costly necklace and earrings of the same. Her dress, of the richest and palest pink satin, was girdled with a diamond stomacher, and a lengthening train swept majestically along the floor. Across her beautifully moulded neck and shoulders, in graceful folds, was thrown a white Cachmere shawl, and her ungloved arm exhibited a profusion of massive jewellery. Her entrance caused a buzz followed by silence throughout the room, and she sailed gracefully up an avenue formed by the separation of the company,—

“A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.”

Doleful and the managers came forward to receive her, and she inclined herself slightly towards them and the few people whom she deigned to recognize.

Having, after infinite persuasion, consented to open the ball with Dumpling, and having looked round the company with a vacant stare, and ascertained that there was no one who could vie with her in splendour, she resignedly took his arm, and the ball-room door being at length thrown open, she sailed up to the top of the room, followed by countless sky-blue coated and canary-legged gentry, escorting their wives, daughters, or partners, with here and there a naval or military uniform mingling among the gay throng of sportsmen and variously clad visitors. Most brilliant was the scene! The room was a perfect blaze of light, and luckless were the wearers of second-hand shoes or ball-stained gloves. There was Dennis O’Brien, towering over the head of everybody else, with his luxuriant whiskers projecting from his cheeks, like cherub’s wings on church corners, with an open shirt collar, confined by a simple blue ribbon, and a superabundant display of silk stocking and calf from below his well-filled canary-coloured shorts,—for smalls would be a libel on the articles that held his middle man. His dark eyes sparkled with vivacity and keenness—not the keenness of pleasure, but the keenness of plunder, for Dennis had dined off chicken broth and lemonade to be ready to

“Cut the light pack or call the rattling main,”

as occasion might offer towards the morning. Snorem, too, had decked himself out in the uniform of the hunt, and this being his usual bed-time, he walked about the room like a man in a dream, or a tired dog looking where to lie down. Then there was Romeo Simpkins, who had just arrived by the last Lily-white-sand train, and had all his friends and acquaintances to greet, and to admire his own legs for the first time protruding through a pair of buff shorts. Fleeceall stood conspicuous with a blue patch on his eye, pointing out his new friends to his wife, who was lost in admiration at the smartness of her spouse, and her own ingenuity in applying the rose-coloured lining of an old bonnet to the laps of his sky-blue coat.

Now the music strikes up in full chorus, and Doleful walks about the room, clapping his hands like a farmer’s boy frightening crows, to get the company to take their places in a country dance; and Mrs. Barnington, having stationed herself at the too, very complacently leads off with “hands across, down the middle, and up again,” with Stephen Dumpling, who foots it away to the utmost of his ability, followed by Round-the-corner Smith with her niece, Barnington with Miss Somebody-else, Romeo Simpkins with Miss Trollope, Dennis O’Brien, who looks like a capering light-house, with little old Miss Mordecai, the rich money-lender’s daughter, and some thirty or forty couples after them. Mrs. Barnington’s train being inconvenient for dancing, and having been twice trodden upon, upon reaching the bottom on the third time down the middle, she very coolly takes Dumpling’s arm, and walks off to the sofa in the bay window, where, having deposited herself, she despatches Dumpling to desire her husband not to exert himself too much, and to come to her the moment the dance is done. The country dance being at length finished, a quadrille quickly followed; after which came a waltz, then a gallop, then another quadrille, then another waltz, then a reel; until the jaded musicians began to repent having been so anxious for the start.

Towards one o’clock the supper-room door was heard to close with a gentle flap, and Doleful was seen stealing out, with a self-satisfied grin on his countenance, and immediately to proceed round the room, informing such of the company as he was acquainted with, from having seen their names in his subscription book at the library, that the next would be the “supper dance”; a dance that all persons who have “serious intentions” avail themselves of, for the interesting purpose of seeing each other eat. Accordingly Dennis O’Brien went striding about the ball-room in search of little Miss Mordecai; Captain Doleful usurped Stephen Dumpling’s place with Mrs. Barnington; Round-the-corner Smith started after the niece, and each man invested his person, in the way of a “pair-off,” to the best of his ability. Barnington was under orders for Dowager Lady Turnabout, who toadied Mrs. Barnington, and got divers dinners and pineapples for her trouble; and Stephen Dumpling, being now fairly “let into the thing,” was left to lug in the two Miss Dobbses on one arm, and old Mother Dobbs on the other.

The simple-minded couples then stand up to dance, and as soon as the quadrilles are in full activity, Doleful offers his arm to Mrs. Barnington and proceeds into the supper-room, followed by all the knowing ones in waiting. But what a splendid supper it is! A cross table with two long ones down the centre, all set out with turkeys, chickens, hams, tongues, lobster salads, spun sugar pyramids, towers, temples, grottoes, jellies, tarts, creams, custards, pineapples, grapes, peaches, nectarines, ices, plovers’ eggs, prawns, and four-and-twenty sponge-cake foxes, with blue, red, and canary-coloured rosettes for tags to their brushes! Green bottles with card labels, and champagne bottles without labels, with sherry, &c., are placed at proper intervals down the table,—the champagne yielding a stronger crop upon the more fruitful soil of the cross table. Who ordered it, nobody knows, but there it is, and it is no time for asking.

Shortly after the first detachment have got comfortably settled in their places, the music stops, and the dancers come crowding in with their panting partners, all anxious for lemonade or anything better. Then plates, knives, and forks are in request; the “far gone” ones eating with the same fork or spoon, those only “half gone” contenting themselves with using one plate. Barnington is in the chair at the cross table, with a fine sporting device of a fox, that looks very like a wolf, at his back, on a white ground with “Floreat Scientia” on a scroll below, the whole tastefully decorated with ribbons and rosettes. Dumpling and Smith are Vice-Presidents. Hark to the clatter! “Miss Thompson, some turkey? allow me to send you a little ham with it?” “Mrs. Jenkins, here’s a delicious lobster salad.” “Now, Fanny, my dear, see you’re dropping the preserve over your dress!” “Oh dear! there goes my knife!” “Never mind, ma’am, I’ll get you another.” “Waiter! bring a clean glass—two of them!” “What will you take?” “Champagne, if you please.” “Delightful ball, isn’t it?” “How’s your sister?” “Who’ll take some pineapple punch?” “I will, with pleasure.” “I’ve burst my sandal, and my shoe will come off.” “Dear, that great awkward man has knocked the comb out of my head.” “Go to see the hounds in the morning!” “Susan, mind, there’s mamma looking.” “Waiter! get me some jelly.” “Bachelors’ balls always the pleasantest.” “Barnington is married.” “Oh, he’s nobody!” “Dumpling does it and stuttering Smith, there’s no Mister Barnington.” “There’s the captain—I wonder if he sees us.” “Oh the stoopid! he won’t look this way. Should like to break his provoking head!” “How’s your horse? Has it learnt to canter?” “Take some tongue.” “Champagne, if you please.”

Thus went the rattle, prattle, jabber, and tattle, until Mr. Barnington, who had long been looking very uneasy, being unable to bear the further frowns of his wife, at length rose from his seat for the most awful of all purposes, that of monopolizing all the noise of the room,—a moment that can only be appreciated by those who have filled the unhappy situation of chairman in a company of ladies and gentlemen, when every eye is pointed at the unfortunate victim, and all ears are open to catch and criticize what he says. “Barnington! Barnington! chair! chair! order! order! silence!” cried a hundred voices, in the midst of which Mr. Barnington tried to steal away with his speech, but had to “whip back” and begin again.

“Gentlemen and ladies (order! order!), I mean to say, Mr. Vice-Presidents, ladies, and gentlemen (hear, hear), I beg to propose the health of the Queen—I mean to say, the ladies who have honoured us with their presence this evening.” Great applause, and every man drank to his sweetheart.

Mrs. Barnington looked unutterable things at her spouse as he sat down, for women are all orators or judges of oratory, and well poor Barnington knew the vigour of her eloquence. Beckoning Doleful to her side, she desired him to tell Barnington not to look so like a sheepish schoolboy, but to hold himself straight, and speak out as if he were somebody. This Doleful interpreted into a handsome compliment, which so elated our unfortunate, that he immediately plucked up courage, and rising again, gave the table a hearty thump, and begged the company would fill a bumper to the health of the strangers who had honoured the Handley Cross hunt ball with their company. The strangers then began fidgetting and looking out an orator among themselves, but were put out of suspense by the rising of Dennis O’Brien, who returned thanks in one of his usual felicitous and appropriate speeches, and concluded by proposing the health of the chairman. Barnington was again on his legs, thanking them and giving “Success to fox-hunting,” which was acknowledged by Snorem, who, being half asleep, mistook it for the time when he had to propose the healths of Smith and Dumpling, to whom he paid such lengthy compliments that the ladies cut him short by leaving the room. All restraint now being removed, the gentlemen crowded up to the cross table, when those who had been laying back for supper until they got rid of the women, went at it with vigorous determination,—corks flew, dishes disappeared, song, speech, and sentiment were huddled in together, and in a very short time the majority of the company were surprised to find themselves amazingly funny.