Passing out toward the supper-room we encountered two young men. “What, Hal,” said one, “_you_ at Mrs. Potiphar’s?” It seems that Hal was a sprig of one of the old “families.” “Well, Joe,” said Hal, a little confused, “it _is_ a little strange. The fact is I didn’t mean to be here, but I concluded to compromise by coming, _and not being introduced to the host_.” Hal could come, eat Potiphar’s supper, drink his wines, spoil his carpets, laugh at his fashionable struggles, and affect the puppyism of a foreign Lord, because he disgraced the name of a man who had done some service somewhere, while Potiphar was only an honest man who made a fortune. The supper-room was a pleasant place. The table was covered with a chaos of supper. Everything sweet and rare, and hot and cold, solid and liquid, was there. It was the very apotheosis of gilt gingerbread. There was a universal rush and struggle. The charge of the guards at Waterloo was nothing to it. Jellies, custards, oyster-soup, ice-cream, wine and water, gushed in profuse cascades over transparent precipices of _tulle_, muslin, gauze, silk, and satin. Clumsy boys tumbled against costly dresses and smeared them with preserves,--when clean plates failed, the contents of plates already used were quietly “chucked” under the table--heeltaps of champagne were poured into the oyster tureens or overflowed upon plates to clear the glasses--wine of all kinds flowed in torrents, particularly down the throats of very young men, who evinced their manhood by becoming noisy, troublesome, and disgusting, and were finally either led, sick, into the hat room, or carried out of the way, drunk. The supper over, the young people attended by their matrons descended to the dancing-room for the “German.” This is a dance commencing usually at midnight or a little after, and continuing indefinitely toward daybreak. The young people were attended by their matrons, who were there to supervise the morals and manners of their charges. To secure the performance of this duty, the young people took good care to sit where the matrons could not see them, nor did they, by any chance, look toward the quarter in which the matrons sat. In that quarter through all the varying mazes of the prolonged dance, to two o’clock, to three, to four, sat the bediamonded dowagers, the mothers, the matrons,--against nature, against common sense. They babbled with each other, they drowsed, they dozed. Their fans fell listless into their laps. In the adjoining room, out of the waking sight, even, of the then sleeping mammas, the daughters whirled in the close embrace of partners who had brought down bottles of champagne from the supper-room, and put them by the side of their chairs for occasional refreshment during the dance. The dizzy hours staggered by--“Azalia, you _must_ come now,” had been already said a dozen times, but only as by the scribes. Finally it was declared with authority. Azalia went,--Amelia--Arabella. The rest followed. There