'Dear me! is that you, Pop?' exclaimed the ladies. 'What have you been
doing with yourself all this time? Travelling, I suppose. Every one
travels now. Really you travelled men get quite bores. And where did
you get that coat, if it be a coat?'
Such was the style in which the Fantaisian females saluted the long
absent Popanilla; and really, when a man shuts himself up from the world
for a considerable time, and fancies that in condescending to re-enter
it he has surely the right to expect the homage due to a superior being,
these salutations are awkward. The ladies of England peculiarly excel
in this species of annihilation; and while they continue to drown
puppies, as they daily do, in a sea of sarcasm, I think no true
Englishman will hesitate one moment in giving them the preference for
tact and manner over all the vivacious French, all the self-possessing
Italian, and all the tolerant German women. This is a claptrap, and I
have no doubt will sell the book.
Popanilla, however, had not re-entered society with the intention of
subsiding into a nonentity; and he therefore took the opportunity, a few
minutes after sunset, just as his companions were falling into the
dance, to beg the favour of being allowed to address his sovereign only
for one single moment.
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