I never shall forget the look which Daly gave me as we followed the respectable knight to his lady and family,—the triumphant chuckle of his countenance, the daring laugh in his eyes; while I, who only saw in the success of the design the beginning of a signal defeat, scarce knew whether I was walking on my head or my heels: resistance or remonstrance was equally vain under the circumstances, and in a few minutes we found ourselves in the presence of Lady Dod and her daughters, breathing an atmosphere redolent with the fumes of the departed dinner, and the still remaining fruit and wine. I never was so abashed in my life. My friend, on the contrary, seemed perfectly at home; and, placing himself beside her ladyship, made a sign for me to occupy a vacant seat between the young ladies. Never did I see two more lovely girls.
The courtesy of Sir Timothy, the sweetness of my lady, and the constrained fun of the girls, were, I admit, when I recovered my composure in some degree, a good treat; while Daly, "helping himself and passing the bottle" to me, kept up a fire of conversation, which, if the senior Dods had known anything of the world, would have convinced them in ten minutes that the part of acting deputy-assistant measurer was an assumed one. It certainly was a sight to see the respectable lady of the house pleading the cause of her conservatory, and piling the choicest fruits upon the plate of the arbiter of her destinies, while Fanny's civilities to me were displayed with equal zeal and far superior grace. I would have given the world to have owned the truth; and I am sure, if we had done so, we should not have been the worse received; for, independently of the excellence of the joke and the impudence of the proceeding, the relief which would have been afforded to the minds of the whole Doddery would have ensured us their eternal favour and affection.
Daly having finished the claret, and taken a last "stopper over all" (as the sailors say) of sherry, gave me the signal for departure. I, too, gladly took the hint, and drew back my chair. Fanny looked as if she thought we were in a hurry; however, it was getting late, and my master had some distance to pull. We accordingly rose and prepared to take leave. I bowed my adieu to the girls, and shook hands with Fanny, at which I saw Augusta toss back her head and throw up her sparkling eyes, as much as to say, "Well, Fanny," meaning exactly the reverse. I bowed low to my Lady Dod, and Sir Timothy attended us to our boat. I stepped in; Daly was at the bow; Sir Timothy desired the man who had been left in charge of the funny to go away; and then I saw, with doubt and trepidation, the respectable dupe of Daly's consummate impudence shake him by the hand with a peculiarity of manner which particularly attracted my attention. I saw him in the execution of this manœuvre press upon his palm a bank-note, with a flourish in the corner like the top of a raspberry tartlet.
I never was more agitated. If Daly took this bribe for saving the corner of the conservatory, it was an act of swindling. The strawberries, grapes, and claret, were fit matters of joke, although I admit that it was carrying the joke a little too far; but money,—if he took that, I was resolved to avow the whole affair to Sir Timothy, show up my companion, and leave him to the fate he deserved. Judge my mingled delight and horror when I heard him say,——
"Sir! what I have done in your house or in your society to induce you to believe me capable of taking a bribe to compromise my duty, I really don't know. Mr. Higgins, I call you to witness that this person has had the insolence to put a fifty-pound bank-note into my hand. Witness, too, the manner in which I throw it back to him." Here he suited the word to the action. "Learn, old gentleman," continued he, with an anger so well feigned that I almost believed him in earnest, "that neither fifty nor fifty thousand pounds will warp an honest man from the duty he owes to his employers; and so, sir, good-night, and rely upon it, your conservatory goes,—rely upon it, Sir Timothy;—it comes in the right line, and the short line, and down it goes—and I feel it incumbent on me not only to tell the history of your petty bribe, but to prove my unimpeachable integrity by running the canal right under your dining-room windows; and so, sir, good-night."
Saying which he jumped into the boat, and, pulling away manfully, left his unfortunate victim in all the horrors of defeated corruption, and the certainty of the destruction of his most favourite object, for the preservation of which he had actually crammed his betrayers, and committed himself to a perfect stranger.
THE BALLET.
Not being at this present writing in love with any opera dancer, we can see with "eyes unprejudiced," that the performances to which we allude (ballets) are in the highest possible degree objectionable as referring to taste, and disgusting as relating to decency.
First, then, as to taste—nobody upon earth, we should think, can be bold enough to assert that the horizontal elevation of the female leg, and the rapid twisting of the body—the subsequent attitude and expansion of the arms—are graceful—we mean merely as to dancing. No man certainly, except those whose intellects and appetites are more debased than those of men in general, can feel either amusement or gratification in such an exhibition.