“Yes.” I walked on once more.
Once more approaches my fat incubus, and with a twirl of the towel in his hand looks as if he would fain be delivered of something.
“Why the d—l am I badgered in this way?” I stormed out at last, losing patience at his stammering hesitation, and making a move to get round the fat obstruction and pursue my walk.
“Will you—a—remember the waiter, if you please, sir?”
“Oh! I was not aware that I was to pay the waiter at every meal. I generally do it when I leave the house. Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to let me finish my walk, and trust me till to-morrow morning?”
P. S. Evening in the coffee-room.—They say the best beginning in love is a decided aversion, and badly as I began at Liverpool, I shall always have a tender recollection of it for the unequalled luxury of its baths. A long and beautiful Grecian building crests the head of George’s pier, built by the corporation of Liverpool, and devoted exclusively to salt-water baths. I walked down in the twilight to enjoy this refreshing luxury, and it being Sunday evening, I was shown into the ladies’ end of the building. The room where I waited till the bath was prepared was a lofty and finely proportioned apartment, elegantly furnished, and lined with superbly bound books and pictures, the tables covered with engravings, and the whole looking like a central apartment in a nobleman’s residence. A boy showed me presently into a small drawing-room, to which was attached a bath closet, the two rooms lined, boudoir fashion, with chintz, a clock over the bath, a nice carpet and stove, in short, every luxury possible to such an establishment. I asked the boy if the gentlemen’s baths were as elegant as these. “Oh yes,” he said: “there are two splendid pictures of Niagara Falls and Catskill.” “Who painted them?” “Mr. Wall.” “And whose are they?” “They belong to our father, sir!” I made up my mind that “our father” was a man of taste and a credit to Liverpool.
I have just returned from the dinner given to Macready at the Freemason’s tavern. The hall, so celebrated for public “feeds,” is a beautiful room of a very showy style of architecture, with three galleries, and a raised floor at the end, usually occupied by the cross-table. It accommodated on this occasion four hundred persons.
From the peculiar object of the meeting to do honor to an actor for his intellectual qualities, and for his efforts to spiritualize and elevate the stage, there probably never was collected together in one room so much talent and accomplishment. Artists, authors, critics, publishers and amateurs of the stage—a large body in London—made up the company. My attention was called by one of my neighbors to the singularly superior character of the heads about us, and I had already observed the striking difference, both in head and physiognomy, between this and a common assemblage of men. Most of the persons connected with the press, it was said, were present; and perhaps it would have been a worthy service to the world had some shorn Samson, among the authors, pulled the temple upon the heads of the Philistines.
The cry of “make way!” introduced the duke of Sussex, the chairman of the meeting—a stout, mild-looking, dignified old man, wearing a close black scull-cap and the star and riband. He was followed by Lord Conyngham, who, as grand chamberlain, had done much to promote the interest of the drama; by Lord Nugent (whom I had last seen sailing a scampavia in the bay of Corfu,) by Sir Lytton Bulwer, Mr. Sheil, Sir Martin Shee, Young, the actor, Mr. Milnes, the poet, and other distinguished men. I should have said, by the way, Mr. Macready followed next his Royal Highness.