or the 'Dirge of Ollam Fodhlah?'"
"Who's this mad chap that Titmarsh has brought?" I heard Master Bacon exclaim to Master Perkins. "Look! how frightened Fanny looks!""O poo! gals are ALWAYS frightened," Fanny's brother replied; but Giles Bacon, more violent, said, "I'll tell you what, Tom: if this goes on, we must pitch into him." And so I have no doubt they would, when another thundering knock coming, Gregory rushed into the room and began lighting all the candles, so as to produce an amazing brilliancy, Miss Fanny sprang up and ran to her mamma, and the young gentlemen slid down the banisters to receive the company in the hall.
EVERYBODY BEGINS TO COME, BUT ESPECIALLY MR. MINCHIN.
"It's only me and my sisters," Master Bacon said; though "only"meant eight in this instance. All the young ladies had fresh cheeks and purple elbows; all had white frocks, with hair more or less auburn: and so a party was already made of this blooming and numerous family, before the rest of the company began to arrive.
The three Miss Meggots next came in their fly: Mr. Blades and his niece from 19 in the square: Captain and Mrs. Struther, and Miss Struther: Doctor Toddy's two daughters and their mamma: but where were the gentlemen? The Mulligan, great and active as he was, could not suffice among so many beauties. At last came a brisk neat little knock, and looking into the hall, I saw a gentleman taking off his clogs there, whilst Sir Giles Bacon's big footman was looking on with rather a contemptuous air.
"What name shall I enounce?" says he, with a wink at Gregory on the stair.
The gentleman in clogs said, with quiet dignity,--MR. FREDERICK MINCHIN.
"Pump Court, Temple," is printed on his cards in very small type:
and he is a rising barrister of the Western Circuit. He is to be found at home of mornings: afterwards "at Westminster," as you read on his back door. "Binks and Minchin's Reports" are probably known to my legal friends: this is the Minchin in question.
He is decidedly genteel, and is rather in request at the balls of the Judges' and Serjeants' ladies: for he dances irreproachably, and goes out to dinner as much as ever he can.
He mostly dines at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, of which you can easily see by his appearance that he is a member; he takes the joint and his half-pint of wine, for Minchin does everything like a gentleman. He is rather of a literary turn; still makes Latin verses with some neatness; and before he was called, was remarkably fond of the flute.
When Mr. Minchin goes out in the evening, his clerk brings his bag to the Club, to dress; and if it is at all muddy, he turns up his trousers, so that he may come in without a speck. For such a party as this, he will have new gloves; otherwise Frederick, his clerk, is chiefly employed in cleaning them with India-rubber.
He has a number of pleasant stories about the Circuit and the University, which he tells with a simper to his neighbor at dinner;and has always the last joke of Mr. Baron Maule. He has a private fortune of five thousand pounds; he is a dutiful son; he has a sister married, in Harley Street; and Lady Jane Ranville has the best opinion of him, and says he is a most excellent and highly principled young man.
Her ladyship and daughter arrived just as Mr. Minchin had popped his clogs into the umbrella-stand; and the rank of that respected person, and the dignified manner in which he led her up stairs, caused all sneering on the part of the domestics to disappear.
THE BALL-ROOM DOOR.
A hundred of knocks follow Frederick Minchin's: in half an hour Messrs. Spoff, Pinch, and Clapperton have begun their music, and Mulligan, with one of the Miss Bacons, is dancing majestically in the first quadrille. My young friends Giles and Tom prefer the landing-place to the drawing-rooms, where they stop all night, robbing the refreshment-trays as they come up or down. Giles has eaten fourteen ices: he will have a dreadful stomach-ache to-morrow. Tom has eaten twelve, but he has had four more glasses of negus than Giles. Grundsell, the occasional waiter, from whom Master Tom buys quantities of ginger-beer, can of course deny him nothing. That is Grundsell, in the tights, with the tray.
Meanwhile direct your attention to the three gentlemen at the door:
they are conversing.
1st Gent.--Who's the man of the house--the bald man?
2nd Gent.--Of course. The man of the house is always bald. He's a stockbroker, I believe. Snooks brought me.
1st Gent.--Have you been to the tea-room? There's a pretty girl in the tea-room; blue eyes, pink ribbons, that kind of thing.
2nd Gent.--Who the deuce is that girl with those tremendous shoulders? Gad! I do wish somebody would smack 'em.
3rd Gent.--Sir--that young lady is my niece, sir,--my niece--my name is Blades, sir.
2nd Gent.--Well, Blades! smack your niece's shoulders: she deserves it, begad! she does. Come in, Jinks, present me to the Perkinses.--Hullo! here's an old country acquaintance--Lady Bacon, as I live!
with all the piglings; she never goes out without the whole litter.
(Exeunt 1st and 2nd Gents.)
LADY BACON, THE MISS BACONS, MR. FLAM.
Lady B.--Leonora! Maria! Amelia! here is the gentleman we met at Sir John Porkington's.
[The MISSES BACON, expecting to be asked to dance, smile simultaneously, and begin to smooth their tuckers.]
Mr. Flam.--Lady Bacon! I couldn't be mistaken in YOU! Won't you dance, Lady Bacon?
Lady B.--Go away, you droll creature!
Mr. Flam.--And these are your ladyship's seven lovely sisters, to judge from their likenesses to the charming Lady Bacon?
Lady B.--My sisters, he! he! my DAUGHTERS, Mr. Flam, and THEYdance, don't you, girls?
The Misses Bacon.--O yes!
Mr. Flam.--Gad! how I wish I was a dancing man!
[Exit FLAM.
MR. LARKINS.