Just before the concert commenced, Mr.Samuel Wilkins ordered two glasses of rum-and-water 'warm with--' and two slices of lemon, for himself and the other young man, together with 'a pint o' sherry wine for the ladies, and some sweet carraway-seed biscuits;' and they would have been quite comfortable and happy, only a strange gentleman with large whiskers _would_ stare at Miss J'mima Ivins, and another gentleman in a plaid waistcoat _would_ wink at Miss J'mima Ivins's friend; on which Miss Jemima Ivins's friend's young man exhibited symptoms of boiling over, and began to mutter about 'people's imperence,' and 'swells out o' luck;' and to intimate, in oblique terms, a vague intention of knocking somebody's head off; which he was only prevented from announcing more emphatically, by both Miss J'mima Ivins and her friend threatening to faint away on the spot if he said another word.
The concert commenced--overture on the organ.

'How solemn!' exclaimed Miss J'mima Ivins, glancing, perhaps unconsciously, at the gentleman with the whiskers.

Mr.Samuel Wilkins, who had been muttering apart for some time past, as if he were holding a confidential conversation with the gilt knob of the dress-cane, breathed hard-breathing vengeance, perhaps,--but said nothing.

'The soldier tired,' Miss Somebody in white satin.

'Ancore!' cried Miss J'mima Ivins's friend.