There also is Mr. Rhodes, bending
courteously over the backs of the visiters' chairs, and hoping everybody
has got everything to their satisfaction, or bestowing an occasional
subdued acknowledgment upon an _habitue_ who chances to enter; and the
professional gentlemen all laying their heads together at the top of the
table to pitch the key of the next glee; and the waiters bustling up and
down with all sorts of tempting comestibles; and the gentleman in the
Chesterfield wrapper smoking a cigar at the side of the room, while he
leans back and contemplates the ceiling, as if his whole soul was
concentrated in its smoke-discoloured mouldings.
The new man is in ecstasies; he beholds the realization of the Arabian
Nights, and when the harmony commences again, he is fairly entranced. At
first, he is fearful of adding the efforts of his laryngeal "little
muscles with the long names" to swell the chorus; but, after the second
glass of stout and a "go of whiskey," he becomes emboldened, and when the
gentleman with the bass voice sings about the Monks of Old, what a jovial
race they were, our friend trolls out how "they laughed, ha, ha!" so
lustily, that he gets quite red in the face from obstructed jugulars, and
applauds, when it has concluded, until everything upon the table performs
a curious ballet-dance, which is only terminated by the descent of the
cruets upon the floor.
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