Tea just over, or, The game of consequences just begun [graphic]

"A provincial evening party; all the guests are elderly, plain, and unfashionable. Those in the foreground sit in an irregular semicircle. Three men laugh together on the left, one makes a gesture which jerks a woman's tea-cup from her hand; she scowls at him with fury. The scalding tea pours over the leg of her neighbour on the right who flourishes his cane, knocking off the wig of a man who stands behind. This man throws up his arms, his cup and saucer fly into the air, the tea pouring on to the head of the man with the cane. The man losing his wig is struck in the face by a spurt of tea from the mouth of a man on the right, trying to restrain his laughter at the sequence of accidents, and unaware that his own skimpy pigtail is burning in a candle. These last two stand behind the semicircle. Behind it (left) four people are playing cards. In the centre two men stand facing each other in profile, much amused."--British Museum online catalogue