AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS 43 



and that is from Dick, who exclaims, as he fingers 

 the delicate stem of his champagne glass, " By-the- 

 hy, to-morrow will be the 1st." The piece of fowl 

 I was that moment in the act of swallowing stuck 

 in my tliroat ; my appetite was destroyed, and I 

 silently, but sorrowfully, resolved that for the 

 future no prodigy could have power to amaze me. 

 Our guests stayed late, and at half-past eleven 

 o'clock, mindful of my early rising the next day, I 

 began to grow fidgetty. By twelve o'clock, however, 

 they had all gone ; and having despatched the 

 ladies of the house to bed, my hand was already 

 grasping my bed-candle, when Tom arrested my in- 

 tention, bidding me, in a voice of manifest astonish- 

 ment at what he was pleased to call my " early 

 roost," to come and do a pipe or two first in Dick's 

 room. Labouring under the delusion that a quarter 

 of an hour was about to be devoted to arranging 

 our sporting plans, I obeyed, and after two hours 

 in Dick's room, spent almost entirely in discussing 

 the relative merits and demerits of certain ladies 

 and horses, found myself between the sheets at last. 

 Awaking with a start, in the morning, to discover 

 it is eight o'clock, I dress with all possible speed, 

 haunted the while with terrible pictures of im- 

 patient sportsmen below anathematizing my tardi- 

 ness as they wait breakfast for me, I hurry 



