"Gentlemen, excuse me for breaking up your _tete-a-tete_. Have you got upon 'Shakspeare, taste, and the musical glasses?'" said Miss Emily, joining the trio. "Mr. Lilylipz, your friend tells me you sing. Will you break the dullness, and favour us?"
"Oh, I never do sing; and, besides, I am suffering from hoarseness."
"Come, come," replied Miss Emily, "none of these excuses, or we shall expect to find a very Braham, at least."
"Now, _r_eally!" remonstrated Mr. Lilylipz.
"Oh, never mind his nonsense, Miss Cheesham," exclaimed Mr. Blowze, from the other side of the room. "Lilylipz sings an uncommonly good song, when he likes. Give us 'the Rose of Cashmere,' or 'She wore a wreath of Roses.' Come away, now--no humbug!"
"Oh, that will be delightful!--pray, do sing!" were the exclamations of a dozen voices, at least. "Mr. Lilylipz' song!" shouted the elderly gentlemen of the party; and, forthwith, an awful stillness reigned throughout the apartment. Upon this, Mr. Lilylipz blew his nose, coughed thrice, and, throwing himself back in his chair, rivetted his eyes, with the utmost intensity, upon a corner of the ceiling. Every one held back his breath in expectation, and the interesting young man opened upon the assemblage with a ballad all about an Araby maid, to whom a Christian knight was submitting proposals of elopement, which the lady appeared to be by no means averse to, for each stanza ended with the refrain, "Away, away, away!" signifying that the parties meant to be off somewhere as fast as possible. Mr. Lilylipz had just concluded verse the first, and the "Away, away, away!" had powerfully excited the imagination of the young ladies present, when the door opened, and the clinking of crystal ware announced the inopportune entrance of a maidservant bearing a trayful of glasses filled with that vile imbroglio of hot water and sugar coloured with wine, which passes in genteel circles by the name of negus. All eyes turned towards the door, and Mrs. Cheesham exclaimed, "Sally, be quiet!" but Mr. Eugene was too much enrapt by his own performance to feel the disturbance, and he tore away through verse the second with kindling enthusiasm. "Away, away, away!" sang the vocalist, when a crash and a scream arrested his progress. The servant maid had dropped the tray, and the glasses were rolling to and fro upon the floor in a confusion of fragments, while the delinquent, Sally, shrieking at the top of her voice, was making her way out at the door with all the speed she was mistress of.