knots in the centre.  Having thus completed a frame, he proceeded, after sundry contortions of the facial muscles, to the execution of the great design.  Having described an ellipse of red chalk, he tastefully inserted within it a perfect representation of the interior of an infant’s mouth in an early stage of dentition, whilst a graceful letter A seemed to keep the gums apart to allow of this artistical exhibition.  Proudly did Mr. Smear cast his small grey eyes on Agamemnon, and challenge him, as it were, to a laudatory acknowledgment of his genius; but as his patron remained silent, Mr. Smear determined to speak out.

“Hart has done her best—­language must do the rest.  I am now only awaiting for the motter.  What shall I say, sir?”

“‘Welcome’ is as good as anything, in my opinion,” replied Collumpsion.

“Welcome!” ejaculated Smear:  “a servile himitation of a general ’lumination idea, sir.  We must be original.  Will you leave it to me?”

“Willingly,” said Agamemnon.  And with many inward protestations against parties in general and his own in particular, he left Mr. Smear and his imagination together.

The great artist in chalk paced the room for some minutes, and then slapped his left thigh, in confirmation of the existence of some brilliant idea.  The result was soon made apparent on the boards of the drawing-room, where the following inscription attested the immensity of Smear’s genius—­

       “PARTAKE
          OF
          OUR
     DENTAL DELIGHT.”

The guinea was instantly paid; but Collumpsion was for a length of time in a state of uncertainty as to whether Mr. Smear’s talents were ornamental or disfigurative.  Nine o’clock arrived, and with it a rumble of vehicles, and an agitation of knocker, that were extremely exhilarating to the heretofore exhausted and distressed family at 24.

We shall not attempt to particularise the arrivals, as they were precisely the same set as our readers have invariably met at routs of the second class for these last five years.  There was the young gentleman in an orange waistcoat, bilious complexion, and hair a la Petrarch, only gingered; and so also were the two Misses ——­, in blue gauze, looped up with coral,—­and that fair-haired girl who “detethted therry,” and those black eyes, whose lustrous beauty made such havoc among the untenanted hearts of the youthful beaux;—­but, reader, you must know the set that must have visited the Applebites.

All went “merry as a marriage bell,” and we feel that we cannot do better than assist future commentators by giving a minute analysis of a word which so frequently occurs in the fashionable literature of the present day that doubtlessly in after time many anxious inquiries and curious conjectures would be occasioned, but for the service we are about to confer on posterity (for the pages of PUNCH are immortal) by a description of