Punch or The London charivari: Punch or The London charivari (2.1842)

24

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LONDON EVENING

PARTIES.

III.—OF VARIOUS PRELIMINARY ARRANGE MENTS.

0 sooner is the evening determined
upon—no sooner are the purchases
completed of no coloured sealing-
wax, and tinted embossed or satined
(as the case may be) note-paper and
envelopes, than the first note of
preparation is sounded, which he-
ralds in the approaching confusion,
in forming the list of guests, and
arguing who can be genteelly left out,
in case you are overdone.

It is evening : Mama and her two
daughters are seated at the table ar-
ranging the names of the visitors,
upon the back of an old letter, having
turned out the dusty records of the
card-basket before them, in order that
no one of importance may be for-
gotten.

Ellen. I am sure I don't see why
we should invite the Harveys, mama.
They have been here twice and never

F. My dear Nelly !—they look just like the young men in the
linendrapers' shops with the large windows ; and Tom says he always
thinks the people have invited the waiters of the places where he
goes to sup after the play when he don't come home until three ii>
the morning, whenever lie sees the white cravats in a room.
They are so very unbecoming !

M. Now, come, my dears—we are not getting cn with the list.
Have you put down Mr. Deucere \

E. Yes, mama.

JI. Very well. Now, let ns see—here's Mr. and Mrs. Howard : of
course they will come, with the four girls.

E. All dressed alike, and standing up in every quadrille. 1 de-
clare I will get George Deucere to put an ice in Harriet's chair, for
h"=x to sit down upon, in revenge for her waltzing last year, when she
bi .ished down the Joan of Arc, and knocked off its head.

F. It's quite awful to see the dead set the Howard girls make at
Mrs. John Robinson, and she never invites them.

Jf. Here is Mr. Frank Maynard—put his name down.

E. And, of course, Maria Pearson's next to it : lie never left her
side all the evening last year. I wonder if that will ever be a match—
what a long time it has been dawdling on ! There—I've written
it—now, who is next ?

JI. Mrs. Lindsey : what a pity it is that some one does not tell
the poor woman to have a new set of cards ! Did you ever see
such a vulgar affair ?

F. Never mind—she gives capital parties. What very good con-
nexions queer odd-looking people often scrape together ' and they
have always got the money.

E. We must tell Tom not to overdo us so much with his own
friends. I declare last year 1 did not know half the young men in
the room—it was so very awkward when you had to introduce them.

JI. Mr. Granby has called here very often. I think we ought to
ask him.

F. Does he waltz ?

E. No—he says his head won't allow it.

F. Ah—that means he can't ; we can do without him. He is
always shuffling about in the hall, cramming his clogs into the
pockets of his rough coat, or stuffing his comforter into his hat, or

asked us back again.

Fair.ii/. And we shall see those
dreadful silver poplins again—they
must be intimately acquainted with
the cane work of all the rout seats
in London.

E. And William Harvey is so ex-
ceedingly disagreeable. He always
looks at the cipher on the plate to

see if it is borrowed or not. something equally fidgety.

F. And last year, he declared the ' ^ Sa^ ^ou understood lie was down in the country, mama,or you

would have been delighted to have seen him.

And in this style is the list arranged, the hostecs gradually be-
coming a prey to isinglass and acute mental inquietude, which gradu-
ally increases as the day draws nearer, until upon the morning of its*
arrival her very brain is almost turned into blancmange from the
intensity of her anxiety.

With the first blush of dawn, the whole establishment is assisting

pineapple ice was full of little square
pieces of raw potato ; and when Mr.
Edwards broke a tumbler at supper,
he told him "not to mind, for they were only tenpence a piece in
Tottenham Court Road." The low wretch thought he had made a
capital joke !

M .Well, my dears-I think your papa will be annoyed if they , [n the process familiarlvknown'as turning a house out of window; and
are left out-but never mind then—we won t ask them. Now, here s a perpetlial parcels delivery at the street-door, keeps the bells and

Mr. Deucere.

E. Oh ! he must come : he's one of those men you meet so many
of in Regent Street, but never at evening parties. I hope he has not
yet shaved off his mustachios—they o.re so very effective in a room.

F. Dear little man ! he is to be called to the bar next month;
and then he says they must go. I wish he would not wear those
odious white neckcloths.

E. I rather like them.

the servants on the vibration the whole morning. All the super-
fluous articles of furniture belonging to the lower part of the man-
sion boldly invade the bedrooms, and finally carry them by storm :
stranere chandeliers attach themselves to the hooks of the drawing-
room ceiling; regiments of candlesticks in all the brilliancy of recent
plate-leathering, and new wax ornaments, appear in review upon the
sideboard, before a staff of Argand table-lamps and pint decant-
ers ; whilst an accompanying sham-fight appears continually going
on between the fire-irons, druggets, broom-handles, and stair-carpets,
all over the house, until the master of the establishment rushes
wildly out for the day, finding in the course of this domestic panto-
mime, which to him is anything but a comic one, that his own
bedchamber has changed into a supper-room. The drawers turned
hindside before, and covered with oil-cloth, look like decapitated
chiffoniers—the four-poster and wash-hand stand have evaporated
altogether—in fact, not one trace is left by which the apartment can
be recognised, except the little red cord attached to the bell-pull,
which originally came through a slit in the tester, and now obsti-
nately asserts its right of occupation.

Barely has a little comparative order been established, than the
arrival of the rout-seats and French rolls commence a fresh series of
confusion, which rapidly accumulates. The key of the chinh, closet
was never yet known to be found when wanted—consequently, it
cannot be opened ; and, on the other hand, the door of the room,when
the supper is already lying in state, cannot be shut. This casualty
much delights the olive-branches of the family —if any there be—
who, being left entirely alone, and quite overlooked in this general
mtlee, divert themselves by poking their little puddy fingers into the
creams, and scooping out the insides of divers patties with a doll's
leg, until rather inclining to their quarters, they migrate thereto f&