This most flattering salutation from a perfect stranger, would have
gratified us not a little as a token of his having held us in high
respect, and for that reason been desirous of our acquaintance, if
we had not suspected from the first, that the young gentleman, in
making a desperate effort to get through the ceremony of
introduction, had, in the bewilderment of his ideas, shaken hands
with us at random. This impression was fully confirmed by the
subsequent behaviour of the bashful young gentleman in question,
which we noted particularly, with the view of ascertaining whether
we were right in our conjecture.
The young gentleman seated himself at table with evident
misgivings, and turning sharp round to pay attention to some
observation of his loquacious neighbour, overset his bread. There
was nothing very bad in this, and if he had had the presence of
mind to let it go, and say nothing about it, nobody but the man who
had laid the cloth would have been a bit the wiser; but the young
gentleman in various semi-successful attempts to prevent its fall,
played with it a little, as gentlemen in the streets may be seen to
do with their hats on a windy day, and then giving the roll a smart
rap in his anxiety to catch it, knocked it with great adroitness
into a tureen of white soup at some distance, to the unspeakable
terror and disturbance of a very amiable bald gentleman, who was
dispensing the contents. We thought the bashful young gentleman
would have gone off in an apoplectic fit, consequent upon the
violent rush of blood to his face at the occurrence of this
catastrophe.
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