“Oh! Mr Turnbull, I’ve such an ’eadache!”
After that the party became very dull. Lord Babbleton fell asleep on the sofa. Mr Peters walked round the room, admiring the pictures, and asking the names of the masters.
“I really quite forget; but, Mr Drummond, you are a judge of paintings I hear. Who do you think this is painted by?” said the lady, pointing to a very inferior performance. “I am not quite sure; but I think it is Van—Van Daub.”
“I should think so too,” replied Mr Drummond, drily; “we have a great many pictures in England by the same hand.”
The French gentleman proposed écarté, but no one knew how to play it except his wife; who sat down with him to pass away the time. The ladies sauntered about the room, looking at the contents of the tables, Mrs Peters occasionally talking of Petercumb Hall; Mr Smith played at patience in one corner; while Mr Turnbull and Mr Drummond sat in another in close conversation; and the lady of the house divided her attentions, running from one to the other, and requesting them not to talk so loud as to awake the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Babbleton. At last the vehicles were announced, and the fashionable party broke up, much to the satisfaction of everybody, and to none more than myself.
I ought to observe that all the peculiar absurdities I have narrated did not strike me so much at the time; but it was an event to me to dine out, and the scene was well impressed upon my memory. After what occurred to me in my after life, and when I became better able to judge of fashionable pretensions, the whole was vividly brought back to my recollection.