ll produce samples of tea or floor-cloth from
their pockets, and sue quite winningly for custom. A speculative bottle
of extraordinarily cheap peach-brandy will arrive with the compliments
of Lord Tom Noddy, who has just gone into the wine-trade; and Lord
Magnus Charters will tell you that, if you are going to rearrange your
electric light, his firm has got some really artistic fittings which he
can let you have on specially easy terms.

So far I have spoken of Hospitality as if it consisted wholly in eating
and drinking. Not so. In those days Evening Parties, or Receptions, or
Drums, or Tails, for so they were indifferently called, took place on
four or five nights of every week. "Tails" as the name implies, were
little parties tacked on to the end of big dinners, where a few people
looked in, rather cross at not having been invited to dine, or else in a
desperate hurry to get on to a larger party or a ball. The larger
parties were given generally on Saturday evenings; and then, amid a
crushing crowd and a din which recalled the Parrot-House at the Zoo, one
might rub shoulders with all the famous men and women of the time. When
Mr. St. Barbe in _Endymion_ attended a gathering of this kind, he said
to his companion, "I daresay that Ambassador has been blundering all his
life, and yet there is something in that Star and Ribbon. I do not know
how you feel, but I could almost go down on my knees to him.

'Ye stars which are the poetry of heaven,'

Byron wrote; a silly line, he should have written--

'Ye stars which are the poetry of dress.'"

Political "Drums" had a flavour which was all their own. If they were
given in any of the Great Houses of London, where the stateliness and
beauty of the old world still survived, such guests as Lord
Beaconsfield's creations, Mr. Horrocks, M.P., and Trodgitts, the
unsuccessful candidate, would look a little subdued. But in the ordinary
house, with a back and front drawing-room and a buffet in the
dining-room, those good men were quite at home, and the air was thick
with political shop--whether we should loose Pedlington or save
Shuffleborough with a struggle--whether A would get office and how
disgusted B would be if he did.

Here and there a more thrilling note was sounded. At a Liberal party in
the spring of 1881 an ex-Whip of the Liberal party said to a Liberal
lady, as he was giving her a cup of tea: "Have you heard how ill old
Dizzy is?" "Oh, yes!" replied