o can't have no wish to learn. The
knives and forks form a pleasing accompaniment to Auber's music, and
Auber's music would form a pleasing accompaniment to the dinner, if you
could hear anything besides the cymbals. The substantials
disappear--moulds of jelly vanish like lightning--hearty eaters wipe
their foreheads, and appear rather overcome by their recent
exertions--people who have looked very cross hitherto, become remarkably
bland, and ask you to take wine in the most friendly manner possible--old
gentlemen direct your attention to the ladies' gallery, and take great
pains to impress you with the fact that the charity is always peculiarly
favoured in this respect--every one appears disposed to become
talkative--and the hum of conversation is loud and general.

'Pray, silence, gentlemen, if you please, for _Non nobis_!' shouts the
toast-master with stentorian lungs--a toast-master's shirt-front,
waistcoat, and neckerchief, by-the-bye, always exhibit three distinct
shades of cloudy-white.--'Pray, silence, gentlemen, for _Non nobis_!'
The singers, whom you discover to be no other than the very party that
excited your curiosity at first, after 'pitching' their voices
immediately begin _too-too_ing most dismally, on which the regular old
stagers burst into occasional cries of--'Sh--Sh--waiters!--Silence,
waiters--stand still, waiters--keep back, waiters,' and other exorcisms,
delivered in a tone of indignant remonstrance. The grace is soon
concluded, and the company resume their seats. The uninitiated portion
of the guests applaud _Non nobis_ as vehemently as if it were a capital
comic song, greatly to the scandal and indignation of the regular diners,
who immediately attempt to quell this sacrilegious approbation, by cries
of 'Hush, hush!' whereupon the others, mistaking these sounds for hisses,
applaud more tumultuously than before, and, by way of placing their
approval beyond the possibility of doubt, shout '_Encore_!' most
vociferously.

The moment the noise ceases, up starts the toast-master:--'Gentlemen,
charge your glasses, if you please!' Decanters having been handed about,
and glasses filled, the toast-master proceeds, in a regular ascending
scale:--'Gentlemen--_air_--you--all charged?
Pray--silence--gentlemen--for--the cha-i-r!' The chairman rises, and,
after stating that he feels it quite unnecessary to preface the toast he
is about to propose, with any observations whatever, wanders into a maze
of