CHAPTER VIII: THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY.
Dick had at length secured Fancy for that most delightful of country-dances, opening with six-hands-round.
"Before we begin," said the tranter, "my proposal is, that 'twould be a right and proper plan for every mortal man in the dance to pull off his jacket, considering the heat." "Such low notions as you have, Reuben! Nothing but strip will go down with you when you are a-dancing.

Such a hot man as he is!" "Well, now, look here, my sonnies," he argued to his wife, whom he often addressed in the plural masculine for economy of epithet merely; "I don't see that.

You dance and get hot as fire; therefore you lighten your clothes.

Isn't that nature and reason for gentle and simple?
If I strip by myself and not necessary, 'tis rather pot-housey I own; but if we stout chaps strip one and all, why, 'tis the native manners of the country, which no man can gainsay?
Hey--what did you say, my sonnies ?" "Strip we will!" said the three other heavy men who were in the dance; and their coats were accordingly taken off and hung in the passage, whence the four sufferers from heat soon reappeared, marching in close column, with flapping shirt-sleeves, and having, as common to them all, a general glance of being now a match for any man or dancer in England or Ireland.

Dick, fearing to lose ground in Fancy's good opinion, retained his coat like the rest of the thinner men; and Mr.Shiner did the same from superior knowledge.
And now a further phase of revelry had disclosed itself.