I therefore resolved to try my chance, and--entered the body of Augustus
Tomlinson, as a piece of stolen goods. Faith! the first night I was
shy,--I stuck to the staircase, and ogled an old maid of quality, whom I
had heard announced as Lady Margaret Sinclair. Doubtless she had never
been ogled before; and she was evidently enraptured with my glances. The
next night I read of a ball at the Countess of -------'s. My heart beat
as if I were going to be whipped; but I plucked up courage, and repaired
to her ladyship's. There I again beheld the divine Lady Margaret; and
observing that she turned yellow, by way of a blush, when she saw me, I
profited by the port I had drunk as an encouragement to my entree, and
lounging up in the most modish way possible, I reminded her ladyship of
an introduction with which I said I had once been honoured at the Duke of
Dashwell's, and requested her hand for the next cotillion. Oh, Paul,
fancy my triumph! The old damsel said, with a sigh, she remembered me
very well, ha, ha, ha!--and I carried her off to the cotillion like
another Theseus bearing away a second Ariadne. Not to be prolix on this
part of my life, I went night after night to balls and routs, for
admission to which half the fine gentlemen in London would have given
their ears. And I improved my time so well with Lady Margaret, who was
her own mistress and had L5,000,--a devilish bad portion for some, but
not to be laughed at by me,--that I began to think when the happy day
should be fixed. Meanwhile, as Lady Margaret introduced me to some of
her friends, and my lodgings were in a good situation, I had been
honoured with some real invitations. The only two questions I ever was
asked were (carelessly), "Was I the only son?" and on my veritable answer
'Yes!' 'What' (this was more warmly put),--'what was my county?'
Luckily my county was a wide one,--Yorkshire; and any of its inhabitants
whom the fair interrogators might have questioned about me could only
have answered, I was not in their part of it.