"A waltz, if you please."

The musicians struck up a waltz, and Corporal Van Spitter, who had no
notion of waltzing, further than having seen the dance performed by
others, seized his wife by the waist, who, with an amorous glance,
dropped her fat arm upon the corporal's shoulder. This was the signal
for the rest--the corporal had made but one turn before a hundred couple
more were turning also--the whole room seemed turning. The corporal
could not waltz, but he could turn--he held fast on by the widow, and
with such a firm piece of resistance he kept a centrifugal balance, and,
without regard to time or space, he increased his velocity at a
prodigious rate. Round they went, with the dangerous force of the two
iron-balls suspended to the fly-wheel which regulate the power of some
stupendous steam-engine.

The corporal would not, and his better half could not, stop. The first
couple they came in contact with were hurled to the other side of the
room; a second and a third fell, and still the corporal wheeled on; two
chairs and a table were swept away in a moment. Three young women, with
baskets of cakes and nuts, were thrown down together, and the contents
of all their baskets scattered on the floor; and, "Bravo, corporal!"
resounded from the crew of the Yungfrau--Babette and two bottles of
ginger beer were next demolished; Jemmy Ducks received a hoist, and
Smallbones was flatted to a pancake. Every one fled from the orbit of
these revolving spheres, and they were left to wheel by themselves. At
last, Mrs Van Spitter, finding that nothing else would stop her
husband, who, like all heavy bodies, once put in motion, returned it in
proportion to his weight, dropped down, and left him to support her
whole weight. This was more than the corporal could stand, and it
brought him up all standing--he stopped, dropped his wife, and reeled to
a chair, for he was so giddy that he could not keep his legs, and so out
of breath that he had lost his wind.

"Bravo, corporal!" was shouted throughout the room, while his spouse
hardly knew whether she should laugh, or scold him well; but, it being
the wedding night, she deferred the scolding for that night only, and
she gained a chair, and fanned and wiped, and fanned and wiped again.
The corporal, shortly afterwards, would have danced again, but Mrs Van
Spitter having had quite enough for that evening, she thanked him for
the offer, was satisfied with his prowess, but declined on