I was now the jest of the ushers and pages; and an officer of the guards, on whom I was a little jocose, gave me a box on the ear, bidding me make free with my equals.

This very fellow had been my butt for many years, without daring to lift his hand against me.
"But though I visibly perceived the alteration in the Simple, I was utterly unable to make any guess at the occasion.

I had not the least suspicion of Adelaide; for, besides her being a very good-humored woman, I had often made severe jests on her reputation, which I had all the reason imaginable to believe had given her no offense.

But I soon perceived that a woman will bear the most bitter censures on her morals easier than the smallest reflection on her beauty; for she now declared publicly, that I ought to be dismissed from court, as the stupidest of fools, and one in whom there was no diversion; and that she wondered how any person could have so little taste as to imagine I had any wit.
This speech was echoed through the drawing-room, and agreed to by all present.

Every one now put on an unusual gravity on their countenance whenever I spoke; and it was as much out of my power to raise a laugh as formerly it had been for me to open my mouth without one.
"While my affairs were in this posture I went one day into the circle without my fool's dress.