'My punch,' he continues, 'found much favour with all present, the ladies not excepted, who emptied their glasses as rapidly as if it had been lemonade. Although not dancing, I was fully employed in another way. With all our windows open, the strains of my numerous orchestra propagated their sound over the whole neighbourhood, some of whose inhabitants, impelled by the attraction of sweet sounds, could not resist favouring me with their company. The circumstance of their not being invited to the feast appeared to them a mere trifle not worthy of their attention; and an extraordinary celerity in decorating their exterior (which is all the essential part of a Neapolitan's full dress), would soon enable them to appear in company with Neapolitan decency. To my great surprise, therefore, Don Michele and I had to receive, from time to time, an influx of these unbidden guests, who in most submissive language begged a thousand pardons for their freedom and intrusion. As Don Michele, my master of the ceremonies, seemed to know them all, and, moreover, as I could neither help their coming, nor, when once arrived, turn them out, I thought it best to put a good face on the matter, and receive every one, especially the ladies, with a hearty welcome (as pictured forth in the plate), assigning them places in the adjoining room, where I contrived to form another set of dances; for the number of these parasitical guests soon grew nearly equal to that of my standard company. As my company were now capering away in two of my apartments, I blush to confess that my resolution to keep my toes in a state of quiet quiescence was shaken at last. I could have withstood the pressing solicitations of half-a-dozen of these exhilarated damsels, but for the irresistible temptation of their animated example, and of the excellent music. Fancy the loving smiles, the glistening eyes, the seducing attitudes of these pretty Neapolitan bacchantes, and then ask your conscience how long any Christian, were he even a Quaker or Moravian, could have stood proof against such attraction? The worst of the thing was, that having once broken my vow by dancing with Miss Carlina, a kind of rivalry ensued among the other ladies, most of whom now laid a successive claim to be led down a country dance by _il Signor Colonello_. 'In the course of these pedestrian evolutions I thought I observed in several of my fair partners, cheerful as they had been before, an unusual and extraordinary access of spirits and gaiety; which, with every allowance for the southern latitude and the ice punch (now administered to them the more frugally by reason of the unlooked-for increase in my numbers), I was at a loss to account for, till I saw my man Benedetto whisper something into Don Michele's ear, which the latter telegraphed into mine.