"That is a ceremony I never perform, and never undergo! It is too solemn an affair for me to engage in! I never mean, as long as I live, to be introduced to any one—never!"
"Then if your present list of friends is to last for life, I hope it musters pretty strong?"
"Pardon me! We are not so particular at an ordinary as in an opera-box! There are ways and means of becoming acquainted without my making people conceited, by asking to be introduced! I tread on a lady's gown in passing, look shocked, beg her pardon, receive the very sweetest of smiles, enter into conversation, and am intimate in a moment!"
"Very easy and convenient! I never could imagine till now why officers had all become so awkward at parties lately, in tearing my dress with their spurs!"
"Believe me, nobody is ever introduced to anybody now, and ladies have become equally ingenious with myself in picking up acquaintances. At Almacks last season, Lady Sarah Wyvell, having the good fortune to be next me in a quadrille, though we were not acquainted, asked, with a modest diffident air, if I could possibly tell her the hour. I politely took the trouble of answering her, and mentioned, that the key of my watch had been for some time mislaid, and therefore it was not wound up; but next evening, when we met at the Russian Ambassador's fete, would you believe it, she walked up to me, and, with a fascinating smile, begged my acceptance of a watch-key, beautifully set in turquoises!"
"Which fitted exactly, of course!" added Agnes, laughing. "I like a round unvarnished tale, and admire a ready invention, especially when the story is perfectly credible, and betrays no personal conceit whatever. The world certainly grows more ridiculous every day!"
"You never said a truer thing! It is a good plan in conversation always to say what nobody can contradict! Never certainly was there a more ludicrous medley of people shuffled together, than here at this moment! Nothing but old Doncaster's whim could have brought me to such a snobbery and tag-raggery! Harrowgate is like death itself for levelling all distinctions! You may glance down the dinner-table, containing a hundred and thirty odd-looking guests, and each individual has the same quiet, little, unpretending bottle of sherry placed at his elbow, and labelled with his name. Even the great millionaire, Mr. Crawford, who might, if he chose, drink liquid gold, fares no better, though he has brought home the sort of nabob fortune people used to make long ago. The art is lost now!"
"You might find it, I dare say, in some of the Useful Knowledge books."
"Yes! but I manage still better, by spending a fortune without possessing one, which does quite as well, and gives me less trouble. The hat is his who wears it, and the world is his who enjoys it."
"What a pity that very good people like the Crawfords are so often atrociously disagreeable," observed Agnes, listlessly. "We must allow, that in this world rogues are the majority; and as their good opinion is the most easily gained, and the most easily kept, I wonder less every day that some men are satisfied to secure that, and live upon it."