I do not intend to say any more about it. After the people had supped,
they went back and danced. Some supped again. I gave Miss Bunion,
with my own hands, four bumpers of champagne: and such a quantity
of goose-liver and truffles, that I don't wonder she took a glass of
cherry-brandy afterwards. The gray morning was in Pocklington Square as
she drove away in her fly. So did the other people go away. How green
and sallow some of the girls looked, and how awfully clear Mrs. Colonel
Bludyer's rouge was! Lady Jane Ranville's great coach had roared away
down the streets long before. Fred Minchin pattered off in his clogs:
it was I who covered up Miss Meggot, and conducted her, with her two
old sisters, to the carriage. Good old souls! They have shown their
gratitude by asking me to tea next Tuesday. Methuselah is gone to finish
the night at the club. "Mind to-morrow," Miss Trotter says, kissing
her hand out of the carriage. Canaillard departs, asking the way to
"Lesterre Squar." They all go away--life goes away.
Look at Miss Martin and young Ward! How tenderly the rogue is wrapping
her up! how kindly she looks at him! The old folks are whispering behind
as they wait for their carriage. What is their talk, think you? and when
shall that pair make a match? When you see those pretty little creatures
with their smiles and their blushes, and their pretty ways, would you
like to be the Grand Bashaw?
"Mind and send me a large piece of cake," I go up and whisper archly to
old Mr. Ward: and we look on rather sentimentally at the couple, almost
the last in the rooms (there, I declare, go the musicians, and the clock
is at five)--when Grundsell, with an air effare, rushes up to me and
says, "For e'v'n sake, sir, go into the supper-room: there's that Hirish
gent a-pitchin' into Mr. P."