[A Rogue’s Life by Wilkie Collins]@TWC D-Link bookA Rogue’s Life CHAPTER VII 3/14
I have nothing but the vaguest recollection of it. I remember that the more the perverse lecture theater was warmed the more persistently it smelled of damp plaster; and that the more brightly it was lighted, the more overgrown and lonesome it looked.
I can recall to mind that the company assembled numbered about fifty, the room being big enough to hold three hundred.
I have a vision still before me, of twenty out of these fifty guests, solemnly executing intricate figure-dances, under the superintendence of an infirm local dancing-master--a mere speck of fidgety human wretchedness twisting about in the middle of an empty floor.
I see, faintly, down the dim vista of the Past, an agreeable figure, like myself, with a cocked hat under its arm, black tights on its lightly tripping legs, a rosette in its buttonhole, and an engaging smile on its face, walking from end to end of the room, in the character of Master of the Ceremonies.
These visions and events I can recall vaguely; and with them my remembrances of the ball come to a close.
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