has very black hair and whiskers and
moustaches, but being rather shaky and
tremulous (not with age, of course), got
nervous at the great confusion of carnages
at the top of the street, and chose to
dismount and walk to 402 (A), whereby he got
entangled between one of Mr. Bunter's
pastrycook's men, and Ludovico Scartafaccio
from Modena (with his orchestra on wheels,
drawn by a pony of a Modenese cast of
countenance), and unluckily hooked himself
on to an area railing by his diamond-hilted
sabre, and the collar of the Golden Fleece,
from which unpleasant position he was at
length extricated by policeman P 95, and
Silver Sam, the link-boy.

Finally, to mention a few more notabilities,
there was Bohwanie-Lall, from
Calcutta, a being strongly resembling a
cocoa-nut candle swathed in a pair of
white muslin curtains, bound round with
bell-ropes of diamonds, pearls, and emeralds,
and surmounted by a toupée of birds
of paradise feathers. There was the
author of the last new novel, and the
last new painter, and the last new preacher,
and the last new lion of whatever shape
or degree he might be. There was
Professor Oxalicacides, from Breslau, who, in
his lectures on hygiène lately, gravely hinted
his suspicions that the English sweet-stuff
makers adulterated Everton toffee with sugar
of lead and aqua tophana. There was Madame
Sostenuta, and Mademoiselle Orphea
Sospianti, and Signor Portamento from the
Italian Opera, engaged to sing professionally;
and with them Herr Fritz Lurleiberg, the
great German basso, with a voice from the
tombs, and hair dreadfully long and dishevelled.
There were batallions of. grand
old dowagers in various stages of velvet
and satin, more or less airy. There were
frigid chaperons, so awful in their impressiveness
that they seemed to possess the
capability of doing the office of Medusa's
head for you in a pig's whisper. There were
anxious mammas; and simpering young
dandies in colossal white neckcloths, and feet
so tiny as to endanger their centre of gravity,
and to render their tumbling over in the
midst of a quadrille anything but unlikely.
There were flushed-faced old papas. There
was Jullien's band; and there were cohorts,
Pyrrhic phalanxes, of the dear English, girls,
the forms, the faces, the bright eyes, the red
lips, the laughing lips that I will defy you
to match—Mademoiselle Eulalie, or Signora
Bianca, or Fräulein Trudschen, or Donna
Inez, or Khanoum Haidee, Gulnare, or Dudu,
any summer or winter's day the whole year
through. And so, through the noise of the
night season, the Hon. Mrs. Plover's soirée
dansante proceeded.

How many quadrilles, and polkas, valses à
deux temps, Schottisches and mazurkas there
were. How the "lamps shone o'er fair women
and brave men;" how "a thousand hearts
beat happily," and " eyes looked love to eyes
which spoke again; " how hands were
squeezed in conservatories, and soft nothings
whispered in balconies; how crushed white
roses were ravished from unresisting Sabines
by impetuous dragoons, and tulle ribbons
purloined by Cupid-struck undergraduates of
the University of Oxford, tell, philosopher
in the ill- washed neckcloth and the dress-coat,
to whose appearance candle-light was a
decided advantage—philosopher, too
awkward to dance, too timid to play whist, too
moody to do aught else save lounge against
doorposts and observe. How Lord Claude
Pettitoes proposed (over strawberry ice) to
Mrs. Vanilla, the Cuban widow; how rude
General Halberts made a dash at a model of
Osler's crystal fountain in barley-sugar, and
ate the fluted column up bodily. How
Chibouck Pacha quaffed champagne till his
face shone again; and Lady Blanche Pettitoes
(sister of Lord Claude and daughter of the
Marchioness of Dayryfedde) complained to
her mamma that he, the Pacha, squeezed her;
how Mr. Remanet, M.P., insisted on talking
agricultural statistics to his partner; how the
various lions—literary, artistic, and scientific
—howled, roared, and were trotted out in
different corners of the different salons. How
dancing commenced again after supper;
how Mrs. Plover was here, there, and everywhere,
with a smile for everybody and
a frown for nobody, save that sad fellow,
the member for Barrybugle, who tried
to get a circle together in the boudoir,
to discuss the wrongs of Ireland. How
Bohwanie-Lall from Calcutta, being strictly
of the Brahminical persuasion, rigidly refused
to partake of supper with unbelievers, and
was served with a light repast of pistachio
nuts and water-ice in an adjoining apartment,
—though my private opinion is that he
subsequently devoured a trayfull of real patties
on the staircase. How the professional singers
sang like syrens, and Herr Lurleiberg shook
the very chandeliers with his sepulchral tones.
How all these things were done, tell, fashionable
Muse of soirées dansantes, if, Muse, thou
wert honoured with a card for Mrs. Plover's,
which I was not!

When day-break came at last, how garish
the yellow candle-light looked against the
strong beams of the morning, the stalwart
workers, the early-to-bed goers, and early
risers. How they beat down the flickering
wax ends in their sockets. And the pretty
girls—pretty still—yet looking pale, and a
trifle draggled, and a thought sickly. There
was a faint odour through the crowded rooms
of faded roses and spilt perfumes, and spent
champagne corks. The Honourable Mrs.
Plover's soirée was over. Slowly down the
grand staircase came the company, looking,
if I may be permitted the use of a vulgarism,
"seedy." Slowly the yawning footmen
opened the carriage-doors, and the sleepy
horses clattered off. This was break of day