Upon occasion of a family fete, merriment was in those days carried
further, on the part of both masters and servants, than in the
greatly altered relations and conditions of the present day would be
desirable, or, indeed, possible. In this instance, the fun broke out
in the arranging of a mock marriage between Thomas Rees, commonly
called Tom Fool, and a young girl who served under the cook. Half
the jest lay in the contrast between the long face of the
bridegroom, both congenitally and wilfully miserable, and that of
the bride, broad as a harvest moon, and rosy almost to purple. The
bridegroom never smiled, and spoke with his jaws rather than his
lips; while the bride seldom uttered a syllable without grinning
from ear to ear, and displaying a marvellous appointment of huge and
brilliant teeth. Entering solemnly into the joke, Tom expressed
himself willing to marry the girl, but represented, as an
insurmountable difficulty, that he had no clothes for the occasion.
Thereupon the earl, drawing from his pocket his bunch of keys,
directed him to go and take what he liked from his wardrobe.
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