'I encountered my gentleman as I was proceeding to my room at night,'
said the beau, 'along a narrow corridor, where it was imperative that
one of us should yield the 'pas;' and, I must confess it, we are all so
amazingly alike in our bones, that I stood prepared to demand place of
him. For indubitably the fellow was an obstruction, and at the first
glance repulsive. I took him for anybody's skeleton, Death's
ensign, with his cachinnatory skull, and the numbered ribs, and
the extraordinary splay feet--in fact, the whole ungainly and shaky
hobbledehoy which man is built on, and by whose image in his weaker
moments he is haunted. I had, to be frank, been dancing on a supper with
certain of our choicest Wits and Beauties. It is a recipe for conjuring
apparitions. Now, then, thinks I, my fine fellow, I will bounce you; and
without a salutation I pressed forward. Madam, I give you my word, he
behaved to the full pitch as I myself should have done under similar
circumstances. Retiring upon an inclination of his structure, he draws
up and fetches me a bow of the exact middle nick between dignity
and service. I advance, he withdraws, and again the bow, devoid of
obsequiousness, majestically condescending. These, thinks I, be royal
manners. I could have taken him for the Sable King in person, stripped
of his mantle. On my soul, he put me to the blush.'