Lolling in his luxurious chair, and staring at the brilliant little stage with a moody countenance, Mr. Lobyer reflected upon many things, the thought of which was scarcely adapted to the scene in which he found himself. Ah, if at some delightful assembly where every one is looking so pleased and happy, one could take the roofs off people's brains, as Asmodeus lifted the tiles and timbers of Madrid, what strange subjects we should find our friends pondering! There would be Smith thinking of that iniquitous lawsuit, in which the villany of some pettifogging attorney has involved him; Brown calculating the amounts of renewed accommodation-bills, which must so soon be renewed again; Mrs. Jones thinking what a brute Jones has been for the last week, and how shamefully he is flirting with that brazen-faced Mrs. Smith; Thomson brooding over the gloom of the Stock Exchange, and the amount of capital he has squandered on "contango." And yet "the dalliance and the wit" go on all the while. Mrs. Brown sings one of her pretty sentimental songs--"Robin Adair," or "John Anderson my Jo"--while her feelings towards Brown are almost murderous; Smith warbles his little French _chanson_--all about _laissons rire-er_, and _un beau sourire-er_--and is thinking of what he should like to do to the lawyer even as he warbles. Oh sublime hypocrisies of social intercourse! Is sadde-of-mutton very often cold; salmon, whose attendant cucumber comes too late; ice-pudding, dissolving languidly on the napkin that envelopes it; are the cates and confections of a modern dinner worth so much deception? Instead of the stereotyped invitation prepared by a fashionable stationer, why do not our friends write to us, saying, "Come, let us weep and howl together; for sorrows are many, and life is bitter?" Leaning back in his chair, and looking at the stage, where the Marquis in violet velvet and gold was coquetting with the Countess in blue brocade and diamonds, Thomas Lobyer's thoughts went back to an unforgotten time, and he saw a grassy angle, shut in by ivy-covered walls, and heard the clamorous voices of a crowd of boys. He felt a shower of blows sent home by a practised arm, the hot breath of an antagonist upon his cheek, a handsome face pressing closer and closer to his own. He felt all this; and the vengeful fury of that moment came back to him, intensified by certain feelings that had influenced him of late.