broken candle has perversely fallen the only way in which it could have done any damage, and has thrown the quicksilver on the back of a large looking-glass into an alarming state of eruption.  The return of “cracked and broken” presents a fearful list of smashage and fracture:  the best tea-set is rendered unfit for active service, being minus two saucers, a cup-handle, and a milk-jug; the green and gold dessert-plates have been frightfully reduced in numbers; two fiddle-handle spoons are completely hors de combat, having been placed under the legs of the supper-table to keep it steady; seven straw-stemmed wine-glasses awfully shattered during the “three-times-three” discharge in honour of the toast of the Heir of Applebites; four cut tumblers injured past recovery in a fit of “entusymusy” by four young gentlemen who were accidentally left by themselves in the supper-room; eighteen silver-plated dessert-knives reduced to the character of saws, by a similar number of “nice fellows” who were endeavouring to do the agreeable with the champagne, and consequently could distinguish no difference between wire and grape-stalks.  The destruction in the kitchen had been equally great:  the extra waiter had placed his heel on a ham-sandwich, and, consequently, sat down rather hurriedly on the floor with a large tray of sundries in his lap, the result of which was, according to the following

    OFFICIAL RETURN,

Two decanters         starred;
One salt-cellar       smithereened;
Four tumblers         cracked uncommonly;
An extra waiter       many bruises, and fractured pantaloons.

The day after a party is certain to be a sloppy day; and as the street-door is constantly being opened and shut, a raw, rheumatical wind is ever in active operation.  Both these miseries were consequent upon the Applebite festivities, and Agamemnon saw a series of catarrhs enter the house as the rout-stools made their exit.  He was quite right; for the next fortnight neck-of-mutton broth was the standard bill of fare, only varied by tea, gruel, and toast-and-water.

There is no evil without its attendant good; and the temporary imprisonment of the Applebite family induced them to consider the propriety of naming the infant heir, for hitherto he had been called “the cherub,” “the sweet one,” “the mother’s duck of the world,” and “daddy’s darling.”  Several names had been suggested by the several friends and relatives of the family, but nothing decisive had been agreed to.

Agamemnon wished his heir to be called Isaac, after his grandfather, the member for Puddingbury, “in the hope,” as he expressed himself, “that he might in after years be stimulated to emulate the distinguished talents and virtues of his great ancestor.” (Overruled by Mrs. Waddledot, Mrs. Applebite, and the rest of the ladies.  Isaac declared vulgar, except in the case of the member for Puddingbury.)