han another party of four Americans who sat behind them in the
pit. "All the seats are numbered arm-chairs, and you buy your number at
the pay-place, and go to it with the easiest direction on the ticket
itself. We were early, and the four places of the Americans were on the
next row behind us--all together. After looking about them for some
time, and seeing the greater part of the seats empty (because the
audience generally wait in a caffe which is part of the theatre), one of
them said 'Waal I dunno--I expect we aint no call to set so nigh to one
another neither--will you scatter Kernel, will you scatter sir?--' Upon
this the Kernel 'scattered' some twenty benches off; and they
distributed themselves (for no earthly reason apparently but to get rid
of one another) all over the pit. As soon as the overture began, in came
the audience in a mass. Then the people who had got the numbers into
which they had 'scattered,' had to get them out; and as they understood
nothing that was said to them, and could make no reply but 'A-mericani,'
you may imagine the number of cocked hats it took to dislodge them. At
last they were all got back into their right places, except one. About
an hour afterwards when Moses (_Moses in Egypt_ was the opera) was
invoking the darkness, and there was a dead silence all over the house,
unwonted sounds of disturbance broke out from a distant corner of the
pit, and here and there a beard got up to look. 'What is it neow sir?'
said one of the Americans to another;--'some person seems to be getting
along, again streeem.' 'Waal sir' he replied 'I dunno. But I xpect 'tis
the Kernel sir, a holdin on.' So it was. The Kernel was ignominiously
escorted back to his right place, not in the least disconcerted, and in
perfectly good spirits and temper." The opera was excellently done, and
the price of the stalls one and threepence English. At Milan, on the
other hand, the Scala was fallen from its old estate, dirty, gloomy,
dull, and the performance execrable.

Another theatre of the smallest pretension Dickens sought out with
avidity in Rome, and eagerly enjoyed. He had heard it said in his old
time in Genoa that the finest Marionetti were here; and now, after great
difficulty, he discovered the company in a sort of stable attached to a
decayed palace. "It was a wet night, and there was no audience but a
party of French officers and ourselves. We all sat together. I never saw
anything more amazing than the perfo