Page:Tea, a poem.pdf/24

24 unfortunately wound himself—I mean his foot—his better part—into a lady's cobweb muslin robe; but preceiving it at the instant, he set himself a spinning the other way, like a top, unravelled his step, without omiting one angle or curve, and extricated himself without breaking one thread of the lady's dress! he then sprung up like a sturgeon, crossed his feet four times, and finished this wonderful evolution by quivering his left leg, as a cat does her paw, when she has accidentally dipped it in water. No man "of woman born;" who was not a Frenchman, or a mountebank, could have done the like.