_cabaret_,
Where expense was no consideration. A poet, you see, now and then must
be gay.
(I declined to give more, I remember, than fifty centeems to the waiter;
For I asked him if that was enough; and the jackanapes answered--
_Peut-être_.
Ah, it isn't in you to draw up a _menu_ such as ours was, though humble:
When I told Lady Shoreditch, she thought it a regular _grand tout
ensemble_.)
She danced the heart out of my body--I can see in the glare of the lights,
I can see her again as I saw her that evening, in spangles and tights.
When I spoke to her first, her eye flashed so, I heard--as I
fancied--the spark whiz
From her eyelid--I said so next day to that jealous old fool of a Marquis.
She reminded me, Bill, of a lovely volcano, whose entrails are lava--
Or (you know my _penchant_ for original types) of the upas in Java.
In the curve of her sensitive nose was a singular species of dimple,
Where the flush was the mark of an angel's creased kiss--if it wasn't
a pimple.
Now I'm none of your bashful John Bulls who don't know a pilau from a
puggaree
Nor a chili, by George, from a chopstick. So, sir, I marched into her
snuggery,
And proposed a light supper by way of a finish. I treated her, Bill,
To six _entrées_ of ortolans, sprats, maraschino, and oysters. It made
her quite ill.
Of which moment of sickness I took some advantage. I held her like this,
And availed myself, sir, of her sneezing, to shut up her lips with a kiss.
The waiters, I saw, were quite struck; and I felt, I may say, _entre nous_,
Like Don Juan, Lauzun, Almaviva, Lord Byron, and old Richelieu.