120 THE HAUGHTY SHIRE HUNT. 



Mademoiselle, and as soon as the music commenced he 

 whirled her away into the mazy intricacies of the first 

 dance. 



Septimus had been obliged to accompany his wife and 

 family — very greatly against his will — and, as he stood with 

 his Cecilia leaning on his arm, close by the doorway, he 

 seemed just about as comfortable as a freshly-caught eel on 

 a marble slab. Sir Tommy and Jack Dashwood had given 

 Travers the slip, and were walking round and round the room, 

 arm-in-arm, endeavouring to make up their august minds 

 as to which of the girls should be honoured by invitations 

 to dance with them. 



But now there is a commotion round the band-stand. Push- 

 ing his way through the palms and other evergreens, to a 

 place in the centre of the musicians, comes Herr Gersorsenger 

 Splitzen Lagerbier, the (7u/(Z'Orc7<t'.s?rt', specially engaged with 

 the Pea-Green Teutonic Band (said to be the private band 

 of his All-Serene Highness, the Elector of Sorsedge-Mete lind 

 Stinkewasser, who was Hereditary-Grand-Trousers- Stretcher 

 to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor). 



Presenting the parting of his back hair towards his 

 patrons, Herr Lagerbier grasps his baton, and with a 

 preliminary " p'sst !" which quickly silences all chatter and 

 tuning up on the part of the Pea-Greens, gives the signal, 

 and the string-scrapers and wind-jammers alike let them- 

 selves go with a will. 



The first dance was only half way through when a clatter 

 outside the main entrance of the Corn Exchange — footmen 

 shouting, waiters running down the stone steps, and the 

 champing of horses' bits — announced the arrival of the Duke 



