ot desirous that
Madame Brack's dubious fingers should plunge too frequently into his
Mackabaw.

There is no need to give a prolonged detail of the animated conversation
which ensued during the rest of the banquet; a conversation which would
not much edify the reader. And it is scarcely necessary to say, that all
ladies of the corps de dance are not like Miss Calverley, any more than
that all peers resemble that illustrious member of their order, the late
lamented Viscount Colchicum. But there have been such in our memories
who have loved the society of riotous youth better than the company
of men of their own age and rank, and have given the young ones the
precious benefit of their experience and example; and there have been
very respectable men too who have not objected so much to the kind of
entertainment as to the publicity of it. I am sure, for instance, that
our friend Major Pendennis would have made no sort of objection to join
the a party of pleasure, provided that it were en petit comite, and that
such men as my Lord Steyne and my Lord Colchicum were of the society.
"Give the young men their pleasures," this worthy guardian said to Pen
more than once. "I'm not one of your strait-laced moralists, but an old
man of the world, begad; and I know that as long as it lasts young men
will be young men." And there were some young men to whom this estimable
philosopher accorded about seventy years as the proper period for sowing
their wild oats: but they were men of fashion.

Mr. Foker drove his lovely guests home to Brompton in the drag that
night; but he was quite thoughtful and gloomy during the whole of the
little journey from Richmond; neither listening to the jokes of the
friends behind him and on the box by his side nor enlivening them as was
his wont, by his own facetious sallies. And when the ladies whom he
had conveyed alighted at the door of their house, and asked their
accomplished coachman whether he would not step in and take something
to drink, he declined with so melancholy an air, that they supposed
that the Governor and he had had a difference or that some calamity had
befallen him; and he did not tell these people what the cause of his
grief was, but left Mesdames Rougemont and Calverley, unheeding the
cries of the latter, who hung over her balcony like Jezebel, and called
out to him to ask him to give another party soon.

He sent the drag home under the guidance of one of the grooms, and went
on fo