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

A QUADRILLE: 

which is a dance particularly fashionable in the nineteenth century.  In order to render our details perspicuous and lucid, we will suppose—­

    1.—­A gentleman in tight pantaloons and a tip.
    2.—­Ditto in loose ditto, and a camellia japonica in the
        button-hole of his coat.
    3.—­Ditto in a crimson waistcoat, and a pendulating eye-glass.
    4.—­Ditto in violent wristbands, and an alarming eruption of buttons.

    ALSO,

1.—­A young lady in pink-gauze and freckles. 2.—­Ditto in book-muslin and marabouts. 3.—­Ditto with blonde and a slight cast. 4.—­Ditto in her 24th year, and black satin.

The four gentlemen present themselves to the four ladies, and having smirked and “begged the honour,” the four pairs take their station in the room in the following order: 

The tip and the
freckles.

The camelia japonica,                     The crimson waistcoat,
and the                                   and the
marabouts.                               slight cast.

The violent wristbands
and the
black satin.