the sporting Captain
Livingstone Tuck under the title of Captain Lives-on-his luck, it was
felt that he was rather too near the truth to be pleasant. Indeed, the
company had hardly recovered from the confusion produced by this small
incident when the two Bohemians made their appearance.

Mrs. Scully, who was tastefully arrayed in black satin and lace, stood
near the door of the drawing-room, and looked very charming and
captivating as she fulfilled her duties as hostess. So thought the
major as he approached her and shook her hand, with some well turned
compliment upon his lips.

"Let me inthroduce me friend, Herr von Baumser," he added.

Mrs. Scully smiled upon the German in a way that won his Teutonic heart.
"You will find programmes over there," she explained. "I think the
first is a round dance. No, thank you, major; I shall stand out, or
there will be no one to receive the people." She hurried away to greet
a party of new arrivals, while the major and Baumser wandered off in
search of partners.

There was no want of spirit or of variety in the dancing at Morrison's.
From Mr. Snodder, the exciseman, who danced the original old-fashioned
trois-temps, to young Bucklebury, of the Bank, who stationed himself
immediately underneath the central chandelier, and spun rapidly round
with his partner upon his own axis, like a couple of beetles impaled
upon a single pin, every possible variation of the art of waltzing was
to be observed. There was Mr. Smith, of the Medical College, rotating
round with Miss Clara Timms, their faces wearing that pained and anxious
expression which the British countenance naturally assumes when dancing,
giving the impression that the legs have suddenly burst forth in a
festive mood, and have dragged the rest of the body into it very much
against its will. There was the major too, who had succeeded in
obtaining Mrs. Scully as a partner, and was dancing as old soldiers can
dance, threading his way through the crowded room with the ease begotten
by the experience of a lifetime. Meanwhile Von Baumser, at the other
end, was floundering about with a broad smile upon his face and an
elderly lady tucked under his right arm, while he held her disengaged
hand straight out at right angles, as if she had been a banjo.
In short, the fun was fast and furious, and waltz followed polka and
mazurka followed waltz with a rapidity which weeded out the weaker
vessels among the dancers and tested the stam