he vexed?--A fiddle-stick! He began to
flag with Miss Ward, the dowager's niece, and was glad when the refined
Beauchamp, at her other side, took her up, and entertained her with Lady
Carrickmore's ball and the masquerade, and the last levee, and the
withdrawing-room. There are said to have been persons who could attend
to half a dozen different conversations going on together, and take a
rational part in them all, and indulge, all the time, in a distinct
consecutive train of thought beside. I dare say, Mr. Morphy, the
chess-player, would find no difficulty in it. But Devereux was not by
any means competent to the feat, though there was one conversation,
perhaps, the thread of which he would gladly have caught up and
disentangled. So the talk at top and bottom and both sides of the table,
with its cross-readings, and muddle, and uproar, changed hands, and
whisked and rioted, like a dance of Walpurgis, in his lonely brain.

What he heard, on the whole, was very like
this--'hubble-bubble-rubble-dubble--the great match of
shuttlecock played between the gentlemen of the north and those of
hubble-bubble--the Methodist persuasion; but--ha-ha-ha!--a squeeze of a
lemon--rubble-dubble--ha-ha-ha!--wicked man--hubble-bubble--force-meat
balls and yolks of eggs--rubble-dubble--musket balls from a
steel cross-bow--upon my--hubble-bubble--throwing a sheep's
eye--ha-ha-ha--rubble-dubble--at the two remaining heads on Temple
Bar--hubble-bubble--and the duke left by his will--rubble-dubble--a quid
of tobacco in a brass snuff-box--hubble-bubble--and my Lady
Rostrevor's very sweet upon--rubble-dubble--old Alderman Wallop of
John's-lane--hubble-bubble--ha-ha-ha--from Jericho to Bethany,
where David, Joab, and--rubble-dubble--the whole party upset in
the mud in a chaise marine--and--hubble-bubble--shake a little
white pepper over them--and--rubble-dubble--his name is
Solomon--hubble-bubble--ha-ha-ha--the poor old thing dying of cold, and
not a stitch of clothes to cover her nakedness--rubble-dubble--play or
pay, on Finchley Common--hubble-bubble--most melancholy
truly--ha-ha-ha!--rubble-dubble--and old Lady Ruth is ready to swear she
never--hubble-bubble--served High Sheriff for the county of Down
in the reign of Queen Anne--rubble-dubble--and Dr. and Mrs.
Sturk--hubble-bubble--Secretaries of State in the room of the Duke of
Grafton and General Conway--rubble-dubble--venerable prelate--ha-ha-ha!
hubble-bubble--filthy creature--hubble-bubble