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A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY 45
less fellow breathing, but must have my joke. Now, Cinderella
has a lover, the bearded painter of whom I spoke to you in a
former letter. He has lately plunged into the most extraordinary
fits of passion for her, and is more mad than even he was before.
Woe betide you, O painter ! I have nothing to do : a month to do
that nothing in ; in that time, mark my words, I will laugh at
that painter's beard. Should you like a lock of it, or a sofa
stuffed with it ? there is beard enough : or should you like to see
a specimen of poor little Cinderella's golden ringlets ? Command
your slave. I wish I had paper enough to write you an account
of a grand Garni dinner at which I assisted, and of a scene which
there took place ; and how Cinderella was dressed out, not by a
fairy, but by a charitable kitchen-maid, and was turned out of
the room by her indignant mamma for appearing in the scullion's
finery. But my forte does not lie in such descriptions of polite
life. We drank port, and toasts after dinner : here is the menu,
and the names and order of the eaters."
The bill of fare has been given already, and need not, therefore,
be again laid before the public.
" What a fellow that is !" said young Lord Cinqbars, reading
the letter to his friends, and in a profound admiration of his tutor's
genius.
"And to think that he was a reading man too, and took a
double first," cried another ; "why, the man's an Admirable
Crichton."
"Upon my life, though, he's a little too bad," said a third,
who was a moralist. And with this a fresh bowl of milk-punch
came reeking from the college butteries, and the jovial party
discussed that.