“Mr. Cudmore, may I take the liberty of requesting you would hand me the kettle beside you.”

Now, though the kettle aforesaid was, as the hostess very properly observed, beside him, yet the fact that in complying with the demand, it was necessary for the bashful youth to leave the recess he occupied, and, with the kettle, proceed to walk half across the room—­there to perform certain manual operations requiring skill and presence of mind, before a large and crowded assembly—­was horror to the mind of the poor Jib; and he would nearly as soon have acceded to a desire to dance a hornpipe, if such had been suggested as the wish of the company.  However, there was nothing for it; and summoning up all his nerve—­knitting his brows —­clenching his teeth, like one prepared to “do or die,” he seized the hissing cauldron, and strode through the room, like the personified genius of steam, very much to the alarm of all the old ladies in the vicinity, whose tasteful drapery benefitted but little from his progress.  Yet he felt but little of all this; he had brought up his courage to the sticking place, and he was absolutely half unconscious of the whole scene before him; nor was it till some kind mediator had seized his arm, while another drew him back by the skirts of the coat, that he desisted from the deluge of hot water, with which, having filled the tea-pot, he proceeded to swamp every thing else upon the tray, in his unfortunate abstraction.  Mrs. Clanfrizzle screamed—­the old ladies accompanied her —­the young ones tittered—­the men laughed—­and, in a word, poor Cudmore, perfectly unconscious of any thing extraordinary, felt himself the admired of all admirers,—­very little, it is true, to his own satisfaction.  After some few minutes exposure to these eclats de rire, he succeeded in depositing the source of his griefs within the fender, and once more retired to his sanctuary,—­having registered a vow, which, should I speak it, would forfeit his every claim to gallantry for ever.

Whether in the vow aforesaid Mr. Cudmore had only been engaged in that species of tesselating which furnishes the pavement so celebrated in the lower regions, I know not; but true it is, that he retired that night to his chamber very much discomfited at his debut in the great world, and half disposed to believe that nature had neither intended him for a Brummel nor a D’Orsay.  While he was ruminating on such matters, he was joined by O’Flaherty, with whom he had been always more intimate than any other inmate of the house—­Tom’s tact having entirely concealed what the manners of the others too plainly evinced, the perfect appreciation of the student’s oddity and singularity.  After some few observations on general matters, O’Flaherty began with a tone of some seriousness to express towards Cudmore the warm interest he had ever taken in him, since his first coming among them; his great anxiety for his welfare, and his firm resolve that no chance or casual inattention to mere ceremonial observances on his part should ever be seized on by the other guests as a ground for detraction or an excuse for ridicule of him.