Refreshments--first man often essaying to wipe his nose with his umbrella, which he afterwards placed in the music rack--poured his coffee into his ice-cream, put his cake and sandwich into its place, stirred them up with a tea-spoon, and tried to drink--the effort resulting in a signal failure, he passed his cup to the chandelier for "a little more sugar." The next spilled his wine in Laura Matilda's neck, begged she wouldn't apologize, and offered to wipe it with his pocket handkerchief--by which appellation he designated the door mat, which he had brought in with him from the hall. The other, after carefully depositing his plate on the floor, dropped his gloves into his saucer, and tried to put his over-coat into his vest pocket, made a great attempt to eat his cup of coffee with his knife and fork, and then resolutely set about picking his teeth with the nut-cracker. After some complicated man[oe]uvring, they bowed themselves out as best they could--but the last one, having mistaken the door and gone down cellar, instead of out-doors, was found next morning reposing complacently in the coal-hole. In fact, New York, every New Year's Eve, goes to bed with a huge brick in its municipal hat, and, as the legitimate effect of such indiscretion, awakes next morning with a tremendous corporate headache--"Young America," for once, is unstarched in appearance; and in deportment, meek as the sucking dove. XXI. Amusement for the Million--A 2.40 Sleigh-ride. Sleigh-riding is an amusement to which I was never partial, for I cannot appreciate the pleasure there is, in a man's deliberately freezing his feet, and congealing his fingers into digital icicles; and for my own part unless there was some unusual charm beyond the ride itself, I would as soon think of seeking an evening's amusement by sitting a given number of hours on a frozen mill pond with my pedal extremities stuck through a hole in the ice into the water below. And in the city there are even more discomforts attending this popular penance than in the open country. The man who would trustingly endeavor to draw a sherry cobbler out of a clam-shell, make a gin sling from cold potatoes, lard oil from railroad spikes, or a mint-julep out of sea weed and chestnut burs--or hopefully essay the concoction of a satisfactory oyster stew from jack-knife-handles and bootlegs, is the only person I can conceive of, sanguine enough to anticipate an evening's pleasure from a city sleigh-ride. I can readily conceive that in the country, give a man a fast team, a light sleigh, a clear sky, a straight road, a pretty girl, plenty of snow, and a good tavern with a bright ball-room and capital music waiting at his journey's end, the frigid amusement may be made endurable--possibly, to a man enthusiastic enough to seek for pleasure with the thermometer at zero, even desirable.