There is an
annual banquet in the Guildhall, given by the Lord Mayor and sheriffs,
and I believe it is the very acme of civic feasting.
After viewing the hall, as it still lacked something of ten, I continued
my walk through that entanglement of city streets, and quickly found
myself getting beyond my reckoning. I cannot tell whither I went, but I
passed through a very dirty region, and I remember a long, narrow,
evil-odored street, cluttered up with stalls, in which were vegetables
and little bits of meat for sale; and there was a frowzy multitude of
buyers and sellers. Still I blundered on, and was getting out of the
density of the city into broader streets, but still shabby ones, when,
looking at my watch, I found it to be past ten, and no cab-stand within
sight. It was a quarter past when I finally got into one; and the driver
told me that it would take half an hour to go from thence to Upper Brook
Street; so that I was likely to exceed the license implied in Mr.
Milnes's invitation. Whether I was quite beyond rule I cannot say; but
it did not lack more than ten minutes of eleven when I was ushered up
stairs, and I found all the company assembled. However, it is of little
consequence, except that if I had come early, I should have been
introduced to many of the guests, whom now I could only know across the
table. Mrs. Milnes greeted me very kindly, and Mr. Milnes came towards
me with an elderly gentleman in a blue coat and gray pantaloons,--with a
long, rather thin, homely visage, exceedingly shaggy eyebrows, though no
great weight of brow, and thin gray hair, and introduced me to the
Marquis of Lansdowne.
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