was of country make, very
high in the waist and short in the sleeves, and I suppose must have
looked rather odd to some of the great people assembled, for they stared
at me a great deal, and a whole crowd formed to see me dance--which I did
to the best of my power, performing all the steps accurately and with
great agility, as I had been taught by our dancing-master in the country.

And with whom do you think I had the honour to dance? With no less a
person than Lady Jane Preston; who, it appears, had not gone out of town,
and who shook me most kindly by the hand when she saw me, and asked me to
dance with her. We had my Lord Tiptoff and Lady Fanny Rakes for our vis-
a-vis.

You should have seen how the people crowded to look at us, and admired my
dancing too, for I cut the very best of capers, quite different to the
rest of the gents (my Lord among the number), who walked through the
quadrille as if they thought it a trouble, and stared at my activity with
all their might. But when I have a dance I like to enjoy myself: and
Mary Smith often said I was the very best partner at our assemblies.
While we were dancing, I told Lady Jane how Roundhand, Gutch, and I, had
come down three in a cab, besides the driver; and my account of our
adventures made her Ladyship laugh, I warrant you. Lucky it was for me
that I didn't go back in the same vehicle; for the driver went and
intoxicated himself at the "Yellow Lion," threw out Gutch and our head
clerk as he was driving them back, and actually fought Gutch afterwards
and blacked his eye, because he said that Gutch's red waistcoat
frightened the horse.

Lady Jane, however, spared me such an uncomfortable ride home: for she
said she had a fourth place in her carriage, and asked me if I would
accept it; and positively, at two o'clock in the morning, there was I,
after setting the ladies and my Lord down, driven to Salisbury Square in
a great thundering carriage, with flaming lamps and two tall footmen, who
nearly knocked the door and the whole little street down with the noise
they made at the rapper. You should have seen Gus's head peeping out of
window in his white nightcap! He kept me up the whole night telling him
about the ball, and the great people I had seen there; and next day he
told at the office my stories, with his own usual embroideries upon them.

"Mr. Titmarsh," said Lady Fanny, laughing to me, "who is that great fat
curious man, the master of the house? Do y