Is there, in the whole course of this pleasant and varying life, which young gentlemen and ladies write verses to prove same and sorrowful,--is there, in the whole course of it, one half-hour really and genuinely disagreeable?--if so, it is the half-hour before dinner at a strange inn. Nevertheless, by the help of philosophy and the window, I managed to endure it with great patience: and though I was famishing with hunger, I pretended the indifference of a sage, even when the dinner was at length announced. I coquetted a whole minute with my napkin, before I attempted the soup, and I helped myself to the potatory food with a slow dignity that must have perfectly won the heart of the solemn waiter. The soup was a little better than hot water, and the sharp sauced cotelette than leather and vinegar; howbeit, I attacked them with the vigour of an Irishman, and washed them down with a bottle of the worst liquor ever dignified with the venerabile nomen of claret. The bird was tough enough to have passed for an ostrich in miniature; and I felt its ghost hopping about the stomachic sepulchre to which I consigned it, the whole of that evening and a great portion of the next day, when a glass of curacoa laid it at rest. After this splendid repast, I flung myself back on my chair with the complacency of a man who has dined well, and dozed away the time till the hour of dressing. "Now," thought I, as I placed myself before my glass, "shall I gently please, or sublimely astonish the 'fashionables' of Cheltenham? Ah, bah! the latter school is vulgar, Byron spoilt it. Don't put out that chain, Bedos--I wear--the black coat, waistcoat, and trowsers. Brush my hair as much out of curl as you can, and give an air of graceful negligence to my tout ensemble." "Oui, Monsieur, je comprends," answered Bedos. I was soon dressed, for it is the design, not the execution, of all great undertakings which requires deliberation and delay. Action cannot be too prompt. A chair was called, and Henry Pelham was conveyed to the rooms. CHAPTER XL. Now see, prepared to lead the sprightly dance, The lovely nymphs, and well dressed youths advance: The spacious room receives its jovial guest, And the floor shakes with pleasing weight oppressed. --Art of Dancing. Page. His name, my lord, is Tyrrell. --Richard III. Upon entering, I saw several heads rising and sinking, to the tune of "Cherry ripe." A whole row of stiff necks, in cravats of the most unexceptionable length and breadth, were just before me. A tall thin young man, with dark wiry hair brushed on one side, was drawing on a pair of white Woodstock gloves, and affecting to look round the room with the supreme indifference of bon ton. "Ah, Ritson," said another young Cheltenhamian to him of the Woodstock gauntlets, "hav'n't you been dancing yet?"