. Thither one
fair June night, for the sake of showing the dowager countess and her
beautiful cousin, the French nobleman, Sir Meeson Corby, and others,
what were the pleasures of the London lower orders, my lord had the whim
to conduct them,--merely a parade of observation once round;--the ladies
veiled, the gentlemen with sticks, and two servants following, one of
whom, dressed in quiet black, like the peacefullest of parsons, was my
lord's pugilist, Christopher Ives.

Now, here we come to history: though you will remember what History is.

The party walked round the Gardens unmolested nor have we grounds
for supposing they assumed airs of state in the style of a previous
generation. Only, as it happened, a gentleman of the party was a wag; no
less than the famous, well-seasoned John Rose Mackrell, bent on amusing
Mrs. Kirby-Levellier, to hear her lovely laughter; and his wit and his
anecdotes, both inexhaustible, proved, as he said, 'that a dried fish
is no stale fish, and a smoky flavour to an old chimney story will
often render it more piquant to the taste than one jumping fresh off the
incident.' His exact meaning in 'smoky flavour' we are not to know; but
whether that M. de St. Ombre should witness the effect of English humour
upon them, or that the ladies could permit themselves to laugh, their
voices accompanied the gentlemen in silvery volleys. There had been
'Mackrell' at Fleetwood's dinner-table; which was then a way of saying
that dry throats made no count of the quantity of champagne imbibed,
owing to the fits Rose Mackrell caused. However, there was loud
laughter as they strolled, and it was noticed; and Fleetwood crying out,
'Mackrell! Mackrell!' in delighted repudiation of the wag's last sally,
the cry of 'Hooray, Mackrell!' was caught up by the crowd. They were
not the primary offenders, for loud laughter in an isolated party is bad
breeding; but they had not the plea of a copious dinner.

So this affair began; inoffensively at the start, for my lord was
good-humoured about it.

Kit Ines, of the mercurial legs, must now give impromptu display of his
dancing. He seized a partner, in the manner of a Roman the Sabine,
sure of pleasing his patron; and the maid, passing from surprise to
merriment, entered the quadrille perforce, all giggles, not without
emulation, for she likewise had the passion for the dance. Whereby it
befell that the pair footed in a way to gather observant spectators;
and if it had