Their Large Hours


It was three o'clock in the morning when the guests danced Sir Roger de
Coverley at Mrs. William Day's New Year's party. They would as soon have
thought of having supper without trifle, tipsy-cake, and syllabub, in those
days, as of finishing the evening without Sir Roger. Dancing had begun at
seven-thirty. The lady at the piano was drooping with weariness. Violin and
'cello yawned over their bows; only spasmodically and half-heartedly the
thrum and jingle of the tambourine fell on the ear.

The last was an instrument not included in the small band of the
professional musicians, but was twisted and shaken and thumped on hand and
knee and toe by no less an amateur than Mr. William Day himself.

The master of the house was too stout for dancing, of too restless and
irritable a temperament for the role of looker-on. He loved noise, always;
above all, noise made by himself. He thought no entertainment really
successful at which you could hear yourself speak. He would have preferred
a big drum whereby to inspirit the dancers, but failing that, clashed the
bells of the tambourine in their ears.

"The tambourine is such fun!" the dancers always said, who, out of breath
from polka, or schottische, or galop, paused at his side. "A dance at your
house would not be the same thing at all without your tambourine, Mr. Day."

He banged it the louder for such compliments, turned it on his broad thumb,
shook it over his great head with its shock of sand-coloured and grey hair;
making, as the more saturnine of his guests confided in each other, "a most