first a claw foot, then a crooked arm, and at length, making a leg,
slided gracefully up to an easy chair, of tarnished brocade, with a
hole in its bottom, and led it gallantly out in a ghostly minuet about
the floor.

The musician now played fiercer and fiercer, and bobbed his head and
His nightcap about like mad. By degrees the dancing mania seemed to
seize upon all the other pieces of furniture. The antique, long-bodied
chairs paired off in couples and led down a country dance; a
three-legged stool danced a hornpipe, though horribly puzzled by its
supernumerary leg; while the amorous tongs seized the shovel round the
waist, and whirled it about the room in a German waltz. In short, all
the moveables got in motion, capering about; pirouetting, hands across,
right and left, like so many devils, all except a great clothes-press,
which kept curtseying and curtseying, like a dowager, in one corner, in
exquisite time to the music;--being either too corpulent to dance, or
perhaps at a loss for a partner.

My grandfather concluded the latter to be the reason; so, being, like a
true Irishman, devoted to the sex, and at all times ready for a frolic,
he bounced into the room, calling to the musician to strike up "Paddy
O'Rafferty," capered up to the clothes-press and seized upon two
handles to lead her out:--When, whizz!--the whole revel was at an end.
The chairs, tables, tongs, and shovel slunk in an instant as quietly
into their places as if nothing had happened; and the musician vanished
up the chimney, leaving the bellows behind him in his hurry. My
grandfather found himself seated in the middle of the floor, with the
clothes-press sprawling before him, and the two handles jerked off and
in his hands.