The _dejeuner_ and the _villa fete_ the water party
and the rambling ride, followed each other with the bright rapidity of
the final scenes in a pantomime. Each _dama_ seemed only inspired with
the ambition of giving the last ball; and so numerous were the parties
that the town really sometimes seemed illuminated. To breakfast at
Twickenham, and to dine in Belgrave Square; to hear,' or rather to
honour, half an act of an opera; to campaign through half a dozen
private balls, and to finish with a romp at the rooms, as after our wine
we take a glass of liqueur; all this surely required the courage of
an Alexander and the strength of a Hercules, and, indeed, cannot be
achieved without the miraculous powers of a Joshua. So thought the young
Duke, as with an excited mind and a whirling head he threw himself at
half-past six o'clock on a couch which brought him no sleep.
Yet he recovered, and with the aid of the bath, the soda, and the
coffee, and all the thousand remedies which a skilful valet has ever at
hand, at three o'clock on the same day he rose and dressed, and in an
hour was again at the illustrious bow-window, sneering with Charles
Annesley, or laughing downright with Lord Squib.
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