The only way to get an ordinary city girl really interested in a dance, is to have some moustachoed puppy put his arm round her waist, hug her close up to him, spin her round the room till her head swims.
But the dancing couldn't last for ever, and at length we had to prepare for the ride home.
Towards morning the music got tired, the leading violinist was fiddling on one string on the wrong side of the bridge, and the ophicleide man, unable from sheer exhaustion to convey his potables to his mouth, was pouring them into his instrument, which he had regaled with four mugs of ale and a brandy smash, and the little fifer, with his foot in the big end of the French horn, was wasting his precious breath in trying to coax a quick step out of a drumstick, which he mistook for a flageolet.
Compelled to stop dancing. Ladies went to a private room and repaired their damaged wardrobe with pins and other extemporaneous contrivances, known of them alone. Gentlemen put on what hats and great-coats the preceding parties had left, paid the bill—woke up the driver, and all started for home.
Shower came on, making the ladies look like damaged kaleidoscopes, and taking the starch out of the gentlemen's collars—the gum out of their hats, and the color out of their whiskers.
Upset—females got scattered round loose (horses didn't run away, not a bit of it), one young lady had her foot in my overcoat pocket, and both hands clinched in my hair—got out of the snarl at last, and found that I had traps enough hanging to me to manufacture a small-sized new married couple—a set of false teeth in my fur glove—two pairs of patent moustaches, with the springs broken, in my hat-band, half a head of glossy, ringleted hair in my button-hole, a lace collar hanging to my pantaloons, and my boots full of puff combs.
Righted up at last, hurried over mile-stones, curb-stones, and pebble-stones, till we reached the city—took the young ladies home, and was immediately after arrested by a moist watchman for being a suspicious character, and only identified by my friends in the morning, just in time to keep my name out of the papers.
Am completely disgusted with sleigh-riding—the enjoyment is purely imaginary, and the expense not at all so. Excitement ain't pleasure, any more than sawdust pudding is roast turkey—and then too, the girls are so different—girls here are such touch-me-not creatures, that no one understanding the nature of the animal would venture on a kiss, unless he wanted to get his mouth full of magnesia and carmine; fuss, feathers, furbelows and flummery, will never make a woman out of any of these, until a new saddle and pair of gilt spurs will transform a sucking-calf into a race-horse.
A modern belle stands no kind of a chance with a country beauty—pale cheeks and dingy complexions may be alleviated by chalk and vermillion; but artificial hues are always evanescent, nature alone paints cheeks in fast colors. Sitting up late and guzzling brandy punches wont put the same kind of crimson in the face that is placed there by getting up in the morning, feeding the chickens, chasing the pigs out of the garden, and drinking sweet milk for breakfast. And not only in looks do they differ, but they
"have yet Some tasks to learn, some frailties to forget."