stout chaps strip one and all, why, 'tis the native manners of the
country, which no man can gainsay? Hey--what did you say, my sonnies?"

"Strip we will!" said the three other heavy men who were in the dance;
and their coats were accordingly taken off and hung in the passage,
whence the four sufferers from heat soon reappeared, marching in close
column, with flapping shirt-sleeves, and having, as common to them all, a
general glance of being now a match for any man or dancer in England or
Ireland. Dick, fearing to lose ground in Fancy's good opinion, retained
his coat like the rest of the thinner men; and Mr. Shiner did the same
from superior knowledge.

And now a further phase of revelry had disclosed itself. It was the time
of night when a guest may write his name in the dust upon the tables and
chairs, and a bluish mist pervades the atmosphere, becoming a distinct
halo round the candles; when people's nostrils, wrinkles, and crevices in
general, seem to be getting gradually plastered up; when the very
fiddlers as well as the dancers get red in the face, the dancers having
advanced further still towards incandescence, and entered the cadaverous
phase; the fiddlers no longer sit down, but kick back their chairs and
saw madly at the strings, with legs firmly spread and eyes closed,
regardless of the visible world. Again and again did Dick share his
Love's hand with another man, and wheel round; then, more delightfully,
promenade in a circle with her all to himself, his arm holding her waist
more firmly each time, and his elbow getting further and further behind
her back, till the distance reached was rather noticeable; and, most
blissful, swinging to places shoulder to shoulder, her breath curling
round his neck like a summer zephyr that had strayed from its proper
date. Threading the couples one by one they reached the bottom, when
there arose in Dick's mind a minor misery lest the tune should end before