ve
strenuously avoided elsewhere. Vice, like poverty, seemed to have
annihilated all the distinctions of rank, and the "decorated" noble and
the branded felon sat down to the same board like brethren.

Amid all the gay company of the Cursaal none appeared to have a greater
relish for the glittering pleasures of the scene than a large elderly
man, who, in a coat of jockey cut and a showy waistcoat, sat at the
end of one of the tables,--a post which the obsequious attention of
the waiters proclaimed to be his own distinctively. Within a kind of
ring-fence of bottles and decanters of every shape and size, he looked
the genius of hospitality and dissipation; and it was only necessary
to mark how many a smile was turned on him, how many a soft glance was
directed towards him, to see that he was the centre of all designing
flattery. There was a reckless, unsuspecting jollity in his look that
could not be mistaken; and his loud, hearty laugh bespoke the easy
self-satisfaction of his nature. Like "special envoys," _his_ champagne
bottles were sent hither and thither down the table, and at each instant
a friendly nod or a courteous bow acknowledged his hospitable attention.
At either side of him were seated a knot of his peculiar parasites,
and neither was wit nor beauty wanting to make their society agreeable.
There is a species of mock affection, a false air of attachment in
the homage rendered to such a man as this, that makes the flattery
infinitely more seductive than all the respectful devotion that ever
surrounded a monarch. And so our old friend Peter Dalton--need we to
name him?--felt it. "Barring the glorious burst of a fox-hunting chorus,
or the wild 'hip, hip' of a favorite toast, it was almost as good as
Ireland." Indeed, in some respects, it had rather the advantage over the
dear island.

Peter was intensely Irish, and had all the native relish for high
company, and it was no mean enjoyment that he felt in seeing royal and
serene highnesses at every side of him, and knowing that some of the
great names of Europe were waiting for the very dish that was served
first in honor to himself. There was a glittering splendor, too, in the
gorgeously decorated "Saal," with its frescos, its mirrors, its lustres,
and its bouquets, that captivated him. The very associations which a
more refined critic would have cavilled at had their attractions for
_him_, and he gloried in the noise and uproar. The clink of glasses and
the cr