Jonathan Crane, a little long-nosed old city wine-merchant, a member of the Surrey Hunt, being announced and presented, Mrs. Jorrocks declared herself faint from the heat of the room, and begged to be excused for a few minutes.  Nimrod, all politeness, was about to offer her his arm, but Mr. Jorrocks pulled him back, whispering, “Let her go, let her go.”  “The fact is,” said he in an undertone after she was out of hearing, “it’s a way Mrs. J——­ has when she wants to see that dinner’s all right.  You see she’s a terrible high-bred woman, being a cross between a gentleman-usher and a lady’s-maid, and doesn’t like to be supposed to look after these things, so when she goes, she always pretend to faint.  You’ll see her back presently,” and, just as he spoke, in she came with a half-pint smelling-bottle at her nose.  Benjamin followed immediately after, and throwing open the door proclaimed, in a half-fledged voice, that “dinner was sarved,” upon which the party all started on their legs.

“Now, Mr. Happerley Nimrod,” cried Jorrocks, “you’ll trot Mrs. J——­ down—­according to the book of etiquette, you know, giving her the wall side.[25] Sorry, gentlemen, I havn’t ladies apiece for you, but my sally-manger, as we say in France, is rayther small, besides which I never like to dine more than eight.  Stubbs, my boy, Green and you must toss up for Belinda—­here’s a halfpenny, and let be ’Newmarket’[26] if you please.  Wot say you? a voman!  Stubbs wins!” cried Mr. Jorrocks, as the halfpenny fell head downwards.  “Now, Spiers, couple up with Crane, and James and I will whip in to you.  But stop, gentlemen!” cried Mr. Jorrocks, as he reached the top of the stairs, “let me make one request—­that you von’t eat the windmill you’ll see on the centre of the table.  Mrs. Jorrocks has hired it for the evening, of Mr. Farrell, the confectioner, in Lamb’s Conduit Street, and it’s engaged to two or three evening parties after it leaves this.”  “Lauk, John! how wulgar you are.  What matter can it make to your friends where the windmill comes from!” exclaimed Mrs. Jorrocks in an audible voice from below, Nimrod, with admirable skill, having piloted her down the straights and turns of the staircase.  Having squeezed herself between the backs of the chairs and the wall, Mrs. Jorrocks at length reached the head of the table, and with a bump of her body and wave of her hand motioned Nimrod to take the seat on her right.  Green then pushed past Belinda and Stubbs, and took the place on Mrs. Jorrocks’s left, so Stubbs, with a dexterous manoeuvre, placed himself in the centre of the table, with Belinda between himself and her uncle.  Crane and Spiers then filled the vacant places on Nimrod’s side, Mr. Spiers facing Mr. Stubbs.

[Footnote 25:  “In your passage from one room to another, offer the lady the wall in going downstairs,” etc,—­Spirit of Etiquette.]

[Footnote 26:  “We have repeatedly decided that Newmarket is one toss.”—­Bell’s Life.]