CHAPTER 12
The great ball in honour of Lord Belpher's coming-of-age was at its height. The reporter of the Belpher Intelligencer and Farmers' Guide, who was present in his official capacity, and had been allowed by butler Keggs to take a peep at the scene through a side-door, justly observed in his account of the proceedings next day that the 'tout ensemble was fairylike', and described the company as 'a galaxy of fair women and brave men'. The floor was crowded with all that was best and noblest in the county; so that a half-brick, hurled at any given moment, must infallibly have spilt blue blood. Peers stepped on the toes of knights; honorables bumped into the spines of baronets. Probably the only titled person in the whole of the surrounding country who was not playing his part in the
