undertakings which requires deliberation and delay. Action cannot be too
prompt. A chair was called, and Henry Pelham was conveyed to the rooms.




CHAPTER XL.

Now see, prepared to lead the sprightly dance,
The lovely nymphs, and well dressed youths advance:
The spacious room receives its jovial guest,
And the floor shakes with pleasing weight oppressed.
--Art of Dancing.

Page. His name, my lord, is Tyrrell.
--Richard III.

Upon entering, I saw several heads rising and sinking, to the tune of
"Cherry ripe." A whole row of stiff necks, in cravats of the most
unexceptionable length and breadth, were just before me. A tall thin
young man, with dark wiry hair brushed on one side, was drawing on a pair
of white Woodstock gloves, and affecting to look round the room with the
supreme indifference of bon ton.

"Ah, Ritson," said another young Cheltenhamian to him of the Woodstock
gauntlets, "hav'n't you been dancing yet?"

"No, Smith, 'pon honour!" answered Mr. Ritson; "it is so overpoweringly
hot; no fashionable man dances now;--it isn't the thing."