Kennedy Square by Francis Hopkinson Smith — Read

While all this gayety was going on in the ballroom another and equally joyous gathering was besieging the serving tables in the colonel's private den -- a room leading out of the larger supper room, where he kept his guns and shooting togs, and which had been pressed into service for this one night.

These thirsty gentlemen were of all ages and tastes, from the young men just entering society to the few wrinkled bald-pates whose legs had given out and who, therefore, preferred the colonel's Madeira and terrapin to the lighter pleasures of the dance.