onary menagerie of the celebrated Simpson of the Strand) stood
ready to be slaughtered. Huge stratified pies courted the inquiries of
appetite. Chickens boiled and roast reposed on biers of blue china
bedecked with sprigs of green parsley and slices of yellow lemon. Tanks of
golden sherry and

[Illustration: FULL-BODIED PORTE]

wooed the thirsty revellers; and never since the unlucky
dessert of Mother Eve have temptations been so willingly embraced. The
carnage commenced--spoons dived into the jelly--knives lacerated the
poultry and the raised pies--a colony of custards vanished in a
moment--the elephants were demolished by "ivories[1]"--the sarcophagi were
buried--and the glittering pagodas melted rapidly before the heat and the
attacks of four little ladies in white muslin and pink sashes. The tanks
of sherry and port were distributed by the young gentlemen into the
glasses and over the dresses of the young ladies. The tipsy-cake, like the
wreck of the _Royal George_, was rescued from the foaming ocean in which
it had been imbedded. The diffident young gentlemen grew very red about
the eyes, and very loquacious about the "next set after supper;" whilst
the faces of the elderly ladies all over lie room looked like the red
lamps on Westminster Bridge, and ought to have been beacons to warn the
inexperienced that where they shone there was very little water. The
violent clattering of the plates was at length succeeded by a succession
of merry giggles and provoking little screams, occasioned by the rapid
discharge of a park of _bonbons_.

[1] _Anglice_, Teeth.--THE _one_ PIERCE.

Where the "slight predilection" was reciprocated, the Orlando Simses and
the Tom Walkers were squeezing in beside the blushing idols of their
worship and circling the waists of their divinities with their arms, in
order to take up less room on the rout-stool.

Mamas were shaking heads at daughters who had ventured upon a tenth sip of
a glass of sherry. Papas were getting extremely jocular about the
probability of becoming grand-dittos. Everybody else was doing exactly
what everybody pleased, when Mrs. Applebite's uncle John emerged from
behind an epergne, and vociferously commanded everybody to charge their
glasses; a requisition which nobody was bold enough to dispute. Uncle John
then wiped his lips in the table-cloth, and proceeded to inform the
company of a fact that was universally understood, that they had met there
to celebrate the