The rebels were now merged almost imperceptibly into loyalists but a few still held out, and two of the more callous—I will not affront the living world with their names—went so far as to send out invitations to a party of Quadrille. Six equally hardened rebels arrived at the time appointed. Two tables were formed, the candles were lighted, the guineas stood piled in glittering dozens, the cards were dealt, when suddenly the door was flung open and Mr. Ripple in black sattin, armed with a spade, marched into the room.
"I think, ladies and gentlemen, that I am Spadille this evening," he proclaimed in a voice of ice.
The eight rebels dropped their cards. It was impossible to play with any calmness in the presence of that menacing figure whose contempt was so sublime. The ladies fluttered from the room in dismay.
"Gentlemen," said the Beau, "you will call at my house to-morrow with the humblest apologies for this evening's outrage."
Then he vanished from the room. It only remains to add that the gentlemen did call at the Great House on the following morning where their humiliation was complete if we may judge by an alabaster tablet set up in the portico of the Assembly Rooms where it remained until the other day, when, alas! the famous old rooms, so long the most frequented shrine of wit and beauty in England, were pulled down to make way for a publick library.
The tablet which was in the likeness of the Ace of Spades bore the following inscription:
Sacred to the Memory of Justice, Decency, and Order,
This Tablet was erected by four Gentlemen
In Token of their sincere Penitence and resolute
Amendment.
Also in the profoundest Admiration and deepest
Respect for Beau Ripple, King of Curtain Wells,
for many years
Arbiter of Fashion
and
Oracle of Wit.
The Great and Only
Spadille.
Chapter the Ninth
THE ASSEMBLY
THE submission of the recalcitrants secured once more to Curtain Wells her publick amusements, and the Monday Assembly was announced for Wednesday evening. Everybody determined that it should make up in brilliance what it lacked in punctuality, and all private conversaziones, routs, and Quadrille parties were, by general consent, postponed.