Don't you hear it tinkle?
Butcher's brought the bacon home,—
Cook it in a twinkle."
Without at all thinking or knowing why they were doing so, my boy, two-thirds of those fair ones took up the tune at the first note and hummed it through!
"The fair sect," says Villiam, cautiously, "once heard its mother sing that song, as she had learned it in her native palace; and has the Instink to remember it."
Thus, taking new and beautiful lessons in the ever-fresh volume of animate nature, we sauntered into the ballroom, where our Honest Abe and his lady were viewing the performances from a pair of handsome elevated chairs. Ay, sir: handsome (!) chairs; and that, too, when many an honest poor man in the land has not a single chair with a gilt back to rest upon. Thus are we drifting toward (start not!)—yes sir and madam, toward—Royalty!! Thus, too, are we incurring the highest scorn of the old aristocracy of the capital who had not received invitations.
There was dancing of the ordinary sort in plenty; many solid men of Boston of the oldest age going to the verge of apoplexy in their efforts at double-shuffle; but how can description do justice to the Honorable Gentleman from the Sixth Ward, who performed the celebrated Conflagration Hornpipe!
First, the Honorable Gentleman threw his whole weight upon his left leg, elevated one ear as though intently listening, and tapped distinctly upon the floor with his right heel the number of the district. Then came a confused scuffling, first upon one foot and then upon the other, to represent the hurry and excitement of getting the machine out of the house and whirling her to the scene of the conflagration. The next figure, performed alternately upon the toe, heel, and side of the shoe, was an imitation of the noble machine in motion; the whole winding up with the Honorable Gentleman's seizing his partner around the waist and plunging into a polka, symbolizing the gallant fireman's rescue of a consuming female from a sixth-story window.
This beautiful dance, my boy, was considered an unanswerable argument in favor of a Volunteer Fire Department; but its finishing effect was somewhat marred by a piercing note from the famous night-key bugle of the Mackerel Brass Band: who, in an enfeebled state of mind, was found wandering about the palace a trifle intoxicated, and received prompt direction to the apartments of Detective Baker.
After witnessing, also, the noted walk-around known as the Revenue Stamp, we joined the march for supper, and I sweetly expressed to Captain Villiam Brown my fear of being crowded from the eatables.