at so strange an hour seems nothing short of startling, until it be
remembered that people of quality were then wont to dine between three
and four o'clock of the afternoon. How they spent the earlier portion
of the day is not hard to relate. The men of fashion rose tardily,
feeling none the better, as a rule, for a night at club or tavern, and
then lounged about as best they could, visiting, sauntering in the
Mall,[A] or otherwise trying to pass the time until dinner. This solid
meal over they were ready for the theatre, where they occasionally
arrived in a state of unpleasant exhilaration, damning the play,
ogling the women and making themselves as obnoxious as possible to
the unfortunates who cared more for the stage than the commonplace
audience.

[Footnote A: "It seem'd to me as if the World was turn'd top-side
turvy; for the ladies look'd like undaunted heroes, fit for government
or battle, and the gentlemen like a parcel of fawning, flattering
fops, that could bear cuckoldom with patience, make a jest of an
affront, and swear themselves very faithful and humble servants to the
petticoat; creeping and cringing in dishonor to themselves, to what
was decreed by Heaven their inferiours; as if their education had been
amongst monkeys, who (as it is said) in all cases give the preeminence
to their females."--"The Mall as described by Ned Ward."]

And the women: what of them? They played cards, often for highly
respectable(?) stakes, or went to the theatre when there was nothing
better to do, and frittered away the greater number of the twenty-four
hours in a mode that the fashionable woman of 1898 would consider
positively scandalous. Sometimes the dear creatures went for a stroll
in the Mall, there to meet the English coxcombs with French manners,
or else they paid a few visits.