like
anything; and when they got as far as Pentonville, Miss Ivins's friend's
young man _would_ have the ladies go into the Crown, to taste some shrub,
which, after a great blushing and giggling, and hiding of faces in
elaborate pocket-handkerchiefs, they consented to do. Having tasted it
once, they were easily prevailed upon to taste it again; and they sat out
in the garden tasting shrub, and looking at the Busses alternately, till
it was just the proper time to go to the Eagle; and then they resumed
their journey, and walked very fast, for fear they should lose the
beginning of the concert in the Rotunda.

'How ev'nly!' said Miss J'mima Ivins, and Miss J'mima Ivins's friend,
both at once, when they had passed the gate and were fairly inside the
gardens. There were the walks, beautifully gravelled and planted--and
the refreshment-boxes, painted and ornamented like so many
snuff-boxes--and the variegated lamps shedding their rich light upon the
company's heads--and the place for dancing ready chalked for the
company's feet--and a Moorish band playing at one end of the gardens--and
an opposition military band playing away at the other. Then, the waiters
were rushing to and fro with glasses of negus, and glasses of
brandy-and-water, and bottles of ale, and bottles of stout; and
ginger-beer was going off in one place, and practical jokes were going on
in another; and people were crowding to the door of the Rotunda; and in
short the whole scene was, as Miss J'mima Ivins, inspired by the novelty,
or the shrub, or both, observed--'one of dazzling excitement.' As to the
concert-room, never was anything half so splendid. There was an
orchestra for the singers, all paint, gilding, and plate-glass; and such
an organ! Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's young man whispered it had cost
'four hundred pound,' which Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was 'not dear
neither;' an opinion in which the ladies perfectly coincided. The
audience were seated on elevated benches round the room, and crowded into
every part of it; and everybody was eating and drinking as comfortably as
possible. Just before the concert commenced, Mr. Samuel Wilkins ordered
two glasses of rum-and-water 'warm with--' and two slices of lemon, for
himself and the other young man, together with 'a pint o' sherry wine for
the ladies, and some sweet carraway-seed biscuits;' and they would have
been quite comfortable and happy, only a strange gentleman with large
whiskers _would_