Sir Per.  Ha, ha, ha! why that must have been a high entertainment till your ladyship.

Lady Rod.  Superlative and inexhaustible, Sir Pertinax; ha, ha, ha!—­ Madam, we had in one group—­a peer and a sharper,—­a dutchess and a pinmaker’s wife,—­a boarding school miss and her grandmother,—­a fat parson, a lean general, and a yellow admiral,—­ha, ha, ha!—­aw speaking together—­and bawling and wrangling in fierce contention, as if the fame and fortune of aw the parties were to be the issue of the conflict.

Sir Per.  Ha, ha, ha! pray, madam, what was the object of their contention?

Lady Rod.  O! a vary important one, I assure you;—­of no less consequence, madam, than how an odd trick at whist was lost, or might have been saved.

Omnes.  Ha, ha, ha!

Lady Mac.  Ridiculous!

Lord Lum.  Ha, ha, ha! my dear Rodolpha, I have seen that very conflict a thousand times.

Sir Per.  And so have I, upon honour, my lord.

Lady Rod.  In another party, Sir Pertinax—­ha, ha, ha! we had what was called the cabinet council, which was composed of a duke and a haberdasher,—­a red hot patriot and a sneering courtier,—­a discarded statesman and his scribbling chaplain,—­with a busy, bawling, muckle-headed, prerogative lawyer;—­all of whom were every minute ready to gang together by the lugs, about the in and the out meenistry—­ha, ha, ha!

Sir Per.  Ha, ha, ha! weel, that is a droll motley cabinet, I vow.—­Vary whimsical upon honour.—­But they are aw great politicians at Bath, and settle a meenistry there with as much ease as they do the tune of a country dance.

Lady Rod.  Then, Sir Pertinax, in a retired part of the room—­in a bye corner—­snug—­we had a Jew and a bishop—­

Sir Per.  A Jew and a bishop!—­ha—­ha—­a devilish guid connection that;—­ and pray, my lady, what were they about?

Lady Rod.  Why, sir, the bishop—­was striving to convert the Jew,—­while the Jew—­by intervals—­was slily picking up intelligence fra the bishop about the change in the meenistry, in hopes of making a stroke in the stock.

Omnes.  Ha, ha, ha!

Sir Per.  Ha, ha, ha! admirable! admirable!  I honour the smouse:—­hah! it was develish clever of him, my lord,—­develish clever.

Lord Lum.  Yes, yes—­the fellow kept a sharp look-out.—­I think it was a fair trial of skill on both sides, Mr. Egerton.

Eger.  True, my lord;—­but the Jew seems to have been in the fairer way to succeed.

Lord Lum.  O! all to nothing, sir; ha, ha, ha!—­Well, child, I like your Jew and your bishop much.—­It’s develish clever.—­Let us have the rest of the history, pray, my dear.

Lady Rod.  Guid traith, my lord, the sum total is—­that there we aw danced, and wrangled, and flattered, and slandered, and gambled, and cheated, and mingled, and jumbled, and wolloped together—­clean and unclean—­even like the animal assembly in Noah’s ark.