[Illustration: U]Undoubtedly on the following day 24 Pleasant-terrace was
the most uncomfortable place in the universe. Some one has said that
wherever Pleasure is, Pain is certain not to be far off; and the truth of
the allegory is never better exemplified than on the day after "a most
delightful party." We can only compare it to the morning succeeding a
victory by which the conqueror has gained a great deal of glory at a very
considerable expenditure of _matériel_. Let us accompany the mistress of
the house as she proceeds from room to room, to ascertain the damage done
by the enemy upon the furniture and decorations. A light damask curtain is
found to have been saturated with port wine; a ditto chair-cushion has
been doing duty as a dripping-pan to a cluster of wax-lights; a china
shepherdess, having been brought into violent collision with the tail of a
raging lion on the mantel-piece, has reduced the noble beast to the
short-cut condition of a Scotch colley. A broken candle has perversely
fallen the only way in which it could have done any damage, and has thrown
the quicksilver on the back of a large looking-glass into an alarming
state of eruption. The return of "cracked and broken" presents a fearful
list of smashage and fracture: _the best_ tea-set is rendered unfit for
active service, being minus two saucers, a cup-handle, and a milk-jug; the
green and gold dessert-plates have been frightfully reduced in numbers;
two fiddle-handle spoons are completely _hors de combat_, having been
placed under the legs of the supper-table to keep it steady; seven
straw-stemmed wine-glasses awfully shattered during the
"three-times-three" discharge in honour of the toast of the Heir of
Applebites; four cut tumblers injured past recovery in a fit of
"entusymusy" by four young gentlemen who were accidentally left by
themselves in the supper-room; eighteen silver-plated dessert-knives
reduced to the character of saws, by a similar number of "nice fellows"
who were endeavouring to do the agreeable with the champagne, and
consequently could distinguish no difference between wire and
grape-stalks. The destruction in the kitchen had been equally great: the
extra waiter had placed his heel on a ham-sandwich, and, consequently, sat
down rather hurriedly on the floor with a large tray of sundries in his
lap, the result of which was, according to the following