They were both shaking hands with the rapidity of an experienced cook shelling peas. Each of us was emptied out of our identity and cast into the room beyond, pressed on by the growing mass of those who had fulfilled the object for which they came. By and by we reached the edge of the heap and looked about us. Mrs. Bushytail and Mrs. County, each the centre of a group, were dispensing the milk of their several words with reckless liberality. Presently Mrs. Merchant drew me to a small table covered with plates of bread-and-butter, mixed biscuits, and wedding cake. Then she artfully picked two or three of her friends out of the different groups, and formed them into a small private tea-party. A maid-servant brought us tea—so strong that it tasted like beef-juice and tobacco mixed—and while we were drinking it I saw for the first time that a really nice girl was making herself frightfully hot by singing at the top of her voice. None of us had realized what was happening, only it seemed to me that it was becoming more and more difficult to make oneself heard.
Mrs. Bushytail came to our table, and there were also a German and his wife, both of whom I liked very much. It was he who first noticed the poor girl singing.
“Ach, was!” he said, “der is music, and we knew not. Let us listen.” We all listened hard, but all I could hear was, “blows—part—rose—heart—” and Mrs. Merchant said, “That lovely thing! I always like it so much.”
“She has a goot voice,” said the German lady, “but not str-r-r-ong.”
“Absurd!” Mrs. Bushytail informed us. “They should have had a man to do it.”
The noise was fearful. You know what a party is always like—a yapping and drumming that never stops, and every one stuffing something down holes in their faces—you don’t notice this effect unless everybody is eating at once—and the room began to smell like an oven full of mice.
Mrs. Merchant asked whether I had noticed the portraits hung round the room. She added that they were considered very good.
“They are all Mayors, hein?” said the German, peering through his spectacles.
“Kings,” Mrs. Bushytail explained angrily, “all kings. We don’t keep the Mayors here; they are in the Council Chamber.”