And--mercy on me!--what would you make of yourself at a ball? You are a good-looking fellow, Smith, and nature has been bountiful to you in calf; but I would not advise you to sport that plum-coloured coat and azure waistcoat of an evening. Believe me, that though you may pass muster in such a garb most creditably on the Surrey side, there are people in Grosvenor Square who will unhesitatingly pronounce you a tiger. And pray, whom are you going to dance with? You confess to yourself, whilst working on those relentless and impracticable kids, that you do not know a single soul in the saloon except the man who brought you there, and he has speedily abandoned you. That staid, haughty-looking lady with the diamonds, is a Countess in her own right, and those two fair girls with the auburn ringlets are her daughters, the flower of the English nobility, and the name they bear is conspicuous in history to the Conquest. Had you not better walk up to the noble matron, announce yourself as the author of Silas Spavinhitch, and request an introduction to Lady Edith or Lady Maude? You would just as soon consent to swing yourself like Fra Diavolo on the slack-rope! And suppose that you were actually introduced to Lady Maude, how would you contrive to amuse her? With anecdotes of the back slums, or the green-room, or the witticisms of medical students? Would you tell her funny stories about the loves of the bagmen, or recreations with a migratory giantess in the interior of a provincial caravan? Do you think that, with dulcet prattle of this sort, you could manage to efface the impression made long ago upon her virgin heart by that handsome young guardsman, who is now regarding you with a glance prophetic of a coming flagellation? Surely, you misguided creature, you are not going to expose yourself by dancing? Yes, you are! You once danced a polka with little Laura Wilkins on the boards at Astley's, and ever since that time you have been labouring under the delusion that you are a consummate Vestris. So you claw your shrinking partner round the waist, and set off, prancing like the pony that performs a pas-seul upon its hinder legs; and after bouncing against several couples in your rash and erratic career, you are arrested by the spur of a dragoon, which rips up your inexpressibles, lacerates your ankle, and stretches you on the broad of your back upon the floor, to the intense and unextinguishable delight of the assembled British aristocracy.