16 



THE ADVENTURES OF A GENTLEMAN 



might be his good intentions ; I was allowed to make 

 trial of him. We danced a quadrille together with 

 every gentleman and lady that we met mounted in 

 Hyde Park, and I soon found that the lovely crea- 

 ture was better suited to Almack's than to me. He 

 passaged away in style by the band of the Guards, 



till every soldier grinned a salute, and no rhetoric of 

 mine could divert him from his obvious purpose of 

 escorting them to the palace. Once indeed I pre- 

 vailed on him to turn his head, but it was only to 

 passage the other way, with his rump instead of his 

 face to the troops. At last, in sheer desperation, I 

 plunged both spurs in him at once ; he gave a spring 

 that would have cleared a horse and gig, and then 



