Assume, O reader and spectator—to violate no academical privacy—that we are in the _salle de danse_ conducted for so many years, and with so much success, by Mrs. Hercules Fanteague, late of the Royal Operas. Throughout each day, from morn till dewy eve, does Mrs. Fanteague—a little woman, who, at no remote period of time, has been pretty—assisted by her husband, Mr. Hercules Fanteague, a diminutive gentleman, with tight pantaloons and a “kit,” and a numerous family of sons and daughters, who all appear to have been born dancing-masters and mistresses, give private instruction to ladies and gentlemen, who are as yet novices in the art, or who are too shame-faced to venture upon the ordeal of public instruction. But, at nine o’clock in the evening, commences the public academy—the “hop,” as some persons, innocent of the bump of veneration, call it. There, in the tastefully yet cheaply decorated saloon, with its boarded floor and flying cupids and sylphides on the panels—there, where the gas shines, and the enlivening strains of a band, composed of a harp, piano, and violin, are heard—there, in a remote section of the apartment—the _pons asinorum_ of the dancing-school—the adult gentlemen, who are as yet in the accidence or rudiments of dancing, are instructed in the mysteries of the “positions” and preliminary steps by Mrs. Hercules Fanteague. The dancing-mistress is obliged to be very firm and decided, not to say severe, with her awkward pupils; for some are inclined to blush, and some to laugh and whisper disparaging jokes to one another, and some to tie their legs into knots and imitate the action of the old shutter telegraphs with their arms, and some to sink into a state of stony immobility and semi-unconsciousness, from which they can only be rescued by sharp words and pushes. When these hopeful ones are sufficiently advanced in the elements, they are handed over to lady partners, who, to the sound of the aforesaid harp, piano, and violin, twirl them about the room till they are pronounced fit to figure in the _soirées_ of society, and in the Arabian Night-like scenes of Cremorne and Highbury Barn. [Illustration: NINE O’CLOCK P.M.: A DANCING ACADEMY.]