“It’s a country ship,” screamed she, “not a regiment.” Going off again at a tangent, “Oh, now I see you are a griffin.”
Thus she balanced the anchorite account, and turned the tables. I can’t say I was sorry when he of the Rustomjee Bomanjee came smirking up, and relieved me from the raillery of Miss Rosa, who, though herself guilty of corrupting the kings English, was an arrant quiz, and not disposed to spare my griffinish blunders.
Marpeet now joined me, and after a little banter touching the style in which Miss Rosa had trotted me about, proposed an adjournment to the refreshment-room. To this I joyfully acceded, suggesting that it would be a charity to take poor Grundy with us, if his dissolution had not already taken place.
“Come, Grundy,” said Marpeet; “come along with us; we’re going to victual and refit, and would recommend the same to you, for you seem in need of it.”
Grundy assented with pleasure, and, linked arm-in-arm we entered the refreshment-room.
Here was a scene of considerable bustle; some were preparing acidulous compounds for the ladies in the ball-room; others doing the like for themselves. As we entered, a staid and exemplary young man, with his cargo of negus and cake, balancing the same with the nicety of a juggler, was making his way out, when in banged a six-foot ensign to do the bidding of his fair inamorata, and charged with her fan and gloves, and going full butt against the exemplary beau, upset both negus and cake. The ensign, a flighty fellow in every respect, made a hasty apology, and off, leaving the beau to wipe his waistcoat and repair the damages as best he might. Knots of young fellows were there, laughing, eating sandwiches or brewing negus, lounging, and clanking their swords. Native servants belonging to the visitors or the establishment were bustling about, and making themselves useful; whilst here and there, in a corner, and availing herself of the solitude of a crowd, a young lady might be seen, her back against the wall, listlessly sipping her negus, or balancing a spoon over a jelly-glass, and listening, with downward look and in mute entrancement, to some handsome militaire, whilst he was pouring into her attentive ear the “leprous distilment” of honied words.
Recruited and refreshed, we returned to the ball-room, and in spite of my recent resolution, I again joined the dance, which was kept up till a late hour, when my friends and I returned to my room in the fort, where, fairly done up, I betook myself to rest, the fiddles still sounding in my head, to dream of Miss Rosa, and all I had seen and heard; and so terminated my first ball in the East.
The Kidderpore hops, I hear, are now no more; from which I conclude that some other matrimonial plan has been devised for disposing of the young ladies, more in consonance with the refined delicacy of the age, which, though recognizing the necessity of matrimony, seems to discountenance any expedient which smacks of the slave-market.
On the following evening, Captain Marpeet, according to engagement, called in a hired buggy, to take me a drive on the Course. The Course, as is well known, is the grand resort of the beau monde of Calcutta, which, like a colony of owls or bats from a ruin, emerge at sundown from all parts of that extensive city, to see and to be seen, and to enjoy the coolness of the evening breeze.
Seated in his gig, Marpeet drew up before the barrack in all his glory, handling the ribbons with the peculiar and finished grace of a man who had made it his study. Great, indeed, were his pretensions in that way, and I am confident he would rather have been the leader of the four-in-hand club, than have written the Principia of Newton.