Page:Letters to Squire Pedant in the East.pdf/26

19   SQUIRE PEDANT After the appurtenances of the mensal board had been desumed, an epithalamium and other ariettas were chanted by the junior part of the convivialists; after which we took consession in a spacious saloon – I was soon the object of their oeliads, as a peregrine entity in their midst. I saw them nictate and susurrate on all sides, and they seemed much titillated at my neoteric appearance among them. After the parson had withdrawn, they inchoated saltation, which some performed with considerable legerity.

Those of the feminine gender appeared in the optimity of their attractions. Their tetes had undergone crispation by the implements of friseurs; their kerchiefs were brilliant, and their faces had been rubricated with fucus. Indeed they affected a flirtation that almost affected me with misogyny. I exhilarated a knot of guests with quips and rebuses, and rendered other auxiliations, but, I did not tripudiate, as I considered it entire gallimatia. When all had received satiation as to the diversified amusements, the coterie disbanded, without having suffered any casualty, except being once hugely conquassated by a general sternutation induced by the diffusion of some pulverized mundungus on the floor.

Yours, with metreless amity,

LORENZO ALTISONANT.

Maladyville, Occident, Aug. 12, 1842.

SOPHICAL SIR. - In my quartan of this series of epistolary communications, I imparted to you a delineation of a nuptial ambigue which took place at the commorance of my german, while I was on my trans-