CHAPTER XL.
Now see, prepared to lead the sprightly dance, The lovely nymphs, and well dressed youths advance: The spacious room receives its jovial guest, And the floor shakes with pleasing weight oppressed.—Art of Dancing.
Page. His name, my lord, is Tyrrell.—Richard III.
Upon entering, I saw several heads rising and sinking, to the tune of “Cherry ripe.” A whole row of stiff necks, in cravats of the most unexceptionable length and breadth, were just before me. A tall thin young man, with dark wiry hair brushed on one side, was drawing on a pair of white Woodstock gloves, and affecting to look round the room with the supreme indifference of bon ton.
“Ah, Ritson,” said another young Cheltenhamian to him of the Woodstock gauntlets, “hav’n’t you been dancing yet?”
“No, Smith, ‘pon honour!” answered Mr. Ritson; “it is so overpoweringly hot; no fashionable man dances now;—it isn’t the thing.”
“Why,” replied Mr. Smith, who was a good-natured looking person, with a blue coat and brass buttons, a gold pin in his neckcloth, and kneebreeches, “why, they dance at Almack’s, don’t they?”
“No, ‘pon honour,” murmured Mr. Ritson; “no, they just walk a quadrille or spin a waltz, as my friend, Lord Bobadob, calls it, nothing more—no, hang dancing, ‘tis so vulgar.”
A stout, red-faced man, about thirty, with wet auburn hair, a marvellously fine waistcoat, and a badly-washed frill, now joined Messrs. Ritson and Smith.