Was much amused with the way they disposed of the unsold goods--certain number of articles, (things left at the tables tended by the homely girls) and for each article twenty tickets were put into a hat, whence they were drawn out singly, and the last tickets drawn were to have the prizes--should have thought it was just the same as a lottery, if I had not been acquainted with the ladies, and known they wouldn't do anything so naughty. Came to a place where an old lady, with steel spectacles, was cutting up a loaf of cake into particularly small pieces--asked what it meant--was told there was a gold ring somewhere in the cake, and they proposed to sell each piece for a quarter of a dollar, and give the ring to the lucky buyer--wondered if it wasn't another lottery on a small scale, but supposed it couldn't be--went to the supper-room. It is a curious metropolitan fact, that at parties, balls, or wherever a refreshment-table is spread, every man seems to regard it as his duty to fill himself to the very lips with all the "delicacies of the season," and to accomplish it in the least time possible--as if he was a gun, and anxious to ascertain his calibre, and find out how quickly he could be loaded in case of necessity. And the ladies are not far behind; this evening I learned how much a female _can_ eat in a charitable cause. A pale-faced ball-room belle is a modern Sphinx--a gastronomic problem, whose solution will probably never be satisfactorily expounded. Under the impression that she would not eat more than I had money to pay for, I invited a lady to take some refreshments, and I certainly think that, like the countryman, she imagined she was bound to eat all the bill-of-fare called for. She ate stewed oysters--fried oysters--boiled turkey with oyster sauce, celery--oysters on the shell--ice cream, sponge cake, and Charlotte russe--Roman punch, two water-ices, coffee, sandwiches, cold sausage, lobster salad, oysters broiled, also stewed again, and six on the shell--orange jelly, grape ditto, cake; she then hinted again at oysters, but as the supply had run out, she was obliged to go hungry--paid the bill with a certified check on the Merchants' Bank, which luckily covered the amount, and greatly relieved my mind; for I feared there would be a balance which I would have to give my note for. Having previously procured the articles required for my friend, I immediately left--go home--got there, and proceeded to examine my purchases--found that the slippers--having been pasted together without the slightest regard to permanency, had come apart in my pocket, my comforter had ravelled out, so that I had about six inches comforter, and a wad of yarn big enough to make a horse blanket--my dressing-gown had been made of a moth-eaten remnant, and where there _was_ any sewing, every stitch was as long as a railroad, but the sleeves had, I verily believe, been put in with court plaster, and the long seams closed with carpenter's glue.