English,
of course."

"And here, my love, are the ribbons for the maids' caps and sashes; I
bought them at Waterloo House, very cheap, and a very pretty candle-light
colour."

"Did you speak to them about their gowns?"

"Yes, my love; Sally and Peggy have each a white gown, Betty I can lend one
of my own."

The difference between a _conversazione_ and a rout is simply this:--in the
former you are expected to talk or listen, but to be too ethereal to eat.
In the latter, to be squeezed in a crowd, and eat ices, &c., to cool
yourselves. A _conversazione_ has, therefore, a great advantage over the
latter, as far as the pocket is concerned, it being much cheaper to procure
food for the mind than food for the body. It would appear that tea has been
as completely established the beverage of modern scientific men, as nectar
was formerly that of the gods. The Athenaeum gives tea; and I observed in a
late newspaper, that Lord G---- has promised tea to the Geographical
Society. Had his lordship been aware that there was a beverage invented on
board ship much more appropriate to the science over which he presides than
tea, I feel convinced he would have substituted it immediately; and I
therefore take this opportunity of informing him that sailors have long
made use of a compound which actually goes by the name of _geo-graffy_,
which is only a trifling corruption of the name of the science, arising
from their habit of laying the accent upon the penultimate. I will now give
his lordship the receipt, which is most simple.

Take a tin pot, go to the scuttle-butt (having obtained permission from the
quarter-deck), and draw off about half a pint of very offensive-smelling
water. To this add a gill of vinegar and a ship's buscuit broken up into
small pieces. Stir it well up with the fore-finger; and then, with the
fore-finger and thumb, you may pull out the pieces of buscuit, and eat them
as fast as you please, drinking the liquor to wash all down.

Now this would be the very composition to hand round to the Geographical
Society. It is not christened geography without a reason; the vinegar and
water representing the green sea, and the pieces of buscuit floating in it
the continents and islands which are washed by it.

Now, my lord, do not you thank me for my communication?

But we must return to the _conversazione_ of Doctor and Mrs Feasible.

The company arrived. There was rap after rap. The whole street was
astounded with th