The Christmas Books of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh | Page 4

and goes out to dinner as much as ever he can.
He mostly dines at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, of which you can easily see by his appearance that he is a member; he takes the joint and his half-pint of wine, for Minchin does everything like a gentleman. He is rather of a literary turn; still makes Latin verses with some neatness; and before he was called, was remarkably fond of the flute.
When Mr. Minchin goes out in the evening, his clerk brings his bag to the Club, to dress; and if it is at all muddy, he turns up his trousers, so that he may come in without a speck. For such a party as this, he will have new gloves; otherwise Frederick, his clerk, is chiefly employed in cleaning them with India-rubber.
He has a number of pleasant stories about the Circuit and the University, which he tells with a simper to his neighbor at dinner; and has always the last joke of Mr. Baron Maule. He has a private fortune of five thousand pounds; he is a dutiful son; he has a sister married, in Harley Street; and Lady Jane Ranville has the best opinion of him, and says he is a most excellent and highly principled young man.
Her ladyship and daughter arrived just as Mr. Minchin had popped his clogs into the umbrella-stand; and the rank of that respected person, and the dignified manner in which he led her up stairs, caused all sneering on the part of the domestics to disappear.
THE BALL-ROOM DOOR.
A hundred of knocks follow Frederick Minchin's: in half an hour Messrs. Spoff, Pinch, and Clapperton have begun their music, and Mulligan, with one of the Miss Bacons, is dancing majestically in the first quadrille. My young friends Giles and Tom prefer the landing-place to the drawing-rooms, where they stop all night, robbing the refreshment-trays as they come up or down. Giles has eaten fourteen ices: he will have a dreadful stomach-ache to- morrow. Tom has eaten twelve, but he has had four more glasses of negus than Giles. Grundsell, the occasional waiter, from whom Master Tom buys quantities of ginger-beer, can of course deny him nothing. That is Grundsell, in the tights, with the tray. Meanwhile direct your attention to the three gentlemen at the door: they are conversing.
1st Gent.--Who's the man of the house--the bald man?
2nd Gent.--Of course. The man of the house is always bald. He's a stockbroker, I believe. Snooks brought me.
1st Gent.--Have you been to the tea-room? There's a pretty girl in the tea-room; blue eyes, pink ribbons, that kind of thing.
2nd Gent.--Who the deuce is that girl with those tremendous shoulders? Gad! I do wish somebody would smack 'em.
3rd Gent.--Sir--that young lady is my niece, sir,--my niece--my name is Blades, sir.
2nd Gent.--Well, Blades! smack your niece's shoulders: she deserves it, begad! she does. Come in, Jinks, present me to the Perkinses.-- Hullo! here's an old country acquaintance--Lady Bacon, as I live! with all the piglings; she never goes out without the whole litter. (Exeunt 1st and 2nd Gents.)
LADY BACON, THE MISS BACONS, MR. FLAM.
Lady B.--Leonora! Maria! Amelia! here is the gentleman we met at Sir John Porkington's.
[The MISSES BACON, expecting to be asked to dance, smile simultaneously, and begin to smooth their tuckers.]
Mr. Flam.--Lady Bacon! I couldn't be mistaken in YOU! Won't you dance, Lady Bacon?
Lady B.--Go away, you droll creature!
Mr. Flam.--And these are your ladyship's seven lovely sisters, to judge from their likenesses to the charming Lady Bacon?
Lady B.--My sisters, he! he! my DAUGHTERS, Mr. Flam, and THEY dance, don't you, girls?
The Misses Bacon.--O yes!
Mr. Flam.--Gad! how I wish I was a dancing man!
[Exit FLAM.
MR. LARKINS.
I have not been able to do justice (only a Lawrence could do that) to my respected friend Mrs. Perkins, in this picture; but Larkins's portrait is considered very like. Adolphus Larkins has been long connected with Mr. Perkins's City establishment, and is asked to dine twice or thrice per annum. Evening-parties are the great enjoyment of this simple youth, who, after he has walked from Kentish Town to Thames Street, and passed twelve hours in severe labor there, and walked back again to Kentish Town, finds no greater pleasure than to attire his lean person in that elegant evening costume which you see, to walk into town again, and to dance at anybody's house who will invite him. Islington, Pentonville, Somers Town, are the scenes of many of his exploits; and I have seen this good-natured fellow performing figure-dances at Notting-hill, at a house where I am ashamed to say there was no supper, no negus even to speak of, nothing but the bare merits of the polka in which Adolphus revels. To describe this gentleman's infatuation for dancing, let me say, in a word, that he will even frequent