"
I remember an occasion when a gawsterer was gloppened sorely. There was
an ancient mansion, wainscoted and floored with shining oak, _glib_--I
have not heard that apposite, terse little monosyllable since I went
_slurring_ with the village boys--glib as glass; and in that ancient
mansion there was a banquet; and to that banquet came, with other
guests, "a fop in a gay coat," a coxcomb wearing the bright vestment of
the hunter, albeit in the hour of chase he only hunted gates and gaps;
and upon the white satin lining of his "pink" there was a tiny
button-hole bouquet, such as Mab might have held with her fairy fingers
at the time of her coronation; and in collar, if in nothing else, he
resembled the immortal Shakespeare; and his bosom was broad and snowy as
the swan's; and his pumps were glossy as the raven's wing; and he was
going dinnerward, with a winsome damsel on his arm and a complacent
smile of self-conceit upon his countenance, when the smooth soles of
these new and shining shoes suddenly performed a rapid evolution, as
though they were skates upon ice; and there was a little shriek from the
winsome damsel in particular, and a large "Oh!" from the procession in
general, and a flash of horizontal scarlet, as when a soldier falls in
battle; and then the bruised and bewildered dandy picked himself up, as
best he could, to perform a part for which his qualifications were
small--the personification of a man who had a relish for pain; and I
sympathised with, though I did not love him--not so much because his
feelings, as because his raiment was torn, and he, who was generally the
most lively and locomotive of all, was now depressed and sedentary, like
the lover of Constance, brooding upon his silent grief, as on its nest
the dove, while we remained at the dinner-table, and finally backing out
of the drawing-room at an early hour, as though our hostess were the
queen.
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