It is all over
marble, maplewood, looking-glasses, arabesques, ormolu, and scagliola.
Scrolls, ciphers, dragons, Cupids, polyanthuses, and other flowers
writhe up the walls in every kind of cornucopiosity. Fancy every
gentleman in Jullien's band playing with all his might, and
each performing a different tune; the ornaments at our Club, the
'Sarcophagus,' so bewilder and affect me. Dazzled with emotions which I
cannot describe, and which she dared not reveal, Mrs. Chuff, followed
by her children and son-in-law, walked wondering amongst these blundering
splendours.
In the great library (225 feet long by 150) the only man Mrs. Chuff saw,
was Tiggs. He was lying on a crimson-velvet sofa, reading a French novel
of Paul de Kock. It was a very little book. He is a very little man.
In that enormous hall he looked like a mere speck. As the ladies passed
breathless and trembling in the vastness of the magnificent solitude,
he threw a knowing, killing glance at the fair strangers, as much as to
say, 'Ain't I a fine fellow?' They thought so, I am sure.
'WHO IS THAT?' hisses out Mrs. Chuff, when we were about fifty yards
off him at the other end of the room.
'Tiggs!' says I, in a similar whisper.
'Pretty comfortable this, isn't it, my dear?' says Maine in a
free-and-easy way to Mrs. Sackville; 'all the magazines, you see--writing
materials--new works--choice library, containing every work of
importance--what have we here?--"Dugdale's Monasticon," a most valuable
and, I believe, entertaining book.
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