Peers and playactors, judges and jailors, archbishops, tailors, attorneys, ropemakers and apothecaries, all uniting in the festive delight of good feeding, and drinking the "glorious memory"-- but of whom half the company knew not, only surmising "it was something agin the papists." You may smile, but these were pleasant times, and I scarcely care to go back there since they were changed.

But to return.

The __th had just received an invitation to a ball, to be given by the high sheriff, and to which they most considerately said we should also be invited.

This negociation was so well managed that before noon we all received our cards from a green liveried youth, mounted on a very emaciated pony--the whole turn-out not auguring flatteringly of the high sheriff's taste in equipage.
We dined with the __th, and, as customary before going to an evening party, took the "other bottle" of claret that lies beyond the frontier of prudence.

In fact, from the lieutenant-colonel down to the newly-joined ensign, there was not a face in the party that did not betray "signs of the times" that boded most favourably for the mirth of the sheriff's ball.