“O, damme! but I would have driven you in my curricle,” said Sir Philip: “it was the finest sight and best conducted I ever saw, and only wanted Miss Portman to make it complete. We had gipsies, and Mrs. Mills the actress for the queen of the gipsies; and she gave us a famous good song, Rochfort, you know--and then there _was_ two children upon an _ass_--damme, I don’t know how they came there, for they’re things one sees every day--and belonged only to two of the soldiers’ wives--for we had the whole band of the Staffordshire playing at dinner, and we had some famous glees--and Fawcett gave us his laughing song, and then we had the launching of the ship, and only it was a boat, it would have been well enough--but damme, the song of Polly Oliver was worth the whole--except the Flemish Hercules, Ducrow, you know, dressed in light blue and silver, and--Miss Portman, I wish you had seen this--three great coach-wheels on his chin, and a ladder and two chairs and two children on them--and after that, he sported a musquet and bayonet with the point of the bayonet on his chin--faith! that was really famous! But I forgot the Pyrrhic dance, Miss Portman, which was damned fine too---danced in boots and spurs by those Hungarian fellows--they jump and turn about, and clap their knees with their hands, and put themselves in all sorts of ways--and then we had that song of Polly Oliver, as I told you before, and Mrs. Mills gave us--no, no--it was a drummer of the Staffordshire dressed as a gipsy girl, gave us _the cottage on the moor_, the most charming thing, and would suit your voice, Miss Portman--damme, you’d sing it like an angel----But where was I?--Oh, then they had tea--and fireplaces built of brick, out in the air--and then the entrance to the ball-room was all a colonnade done with lamps and flowers, and that sort of thing--and there was some bon-mot (but that was in the morning) amongst the gipsies about an orange and the stadtholder--and then there was a Turkish dance, and a Polonese dance, all very fine, but nothing to come up to the Pyrrhic touch, which was a great deal the most knowing, in boots and spurs--damme, now, I can’t describe the thing to you, ‘tis a cursed pity you weren’t there, damme.” Lady Delacour assured Sir Philip that she had been more entertained by the description than she could have been by the reality.--“Clarence, was not it the best description you ever heard? But pray favour us with _a touch_ of the Pyrrhic dance, Sir Philip.” Lady Delacour spoke with such polite earnestness, and the baronet had so little penetration and so much conceit, that he did not suspect her of irony: he eagerly began to exhibit the Pyrrhic dance, but in such a manner that it was impossible for human gravity to withstand the sight--Rochfort laughed first, Lady Delacour followed him, and Clarence Hervey and Belinda could no longer restrain themselves.