misbehaviour among the lieutenants, except
sometimes when the provocation was really too strong for them. One
evening a very solemn young White Dragoon, over six feet tall, coming in
in the half darkness after the curtain was up, missed his chair and
plumped down, sabre and all, on the floor of the box instead, to the joy
of his comrades; and once in a Christmas pantomime, they all forgot
their military dignity at the spectacle of a very fat young chorus girl,
whom bad judgment on the part of the ballet mistress had costumed most
realistically for the part of a white rabbit.

Sunday is usually chosen for the first night, as a larger proportion of
the inhabitants is at liberty on that day. At our theatre, performances
of opera were given on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights, with
plays or _Possen mit Gesang_ (farces with singing) on alternate nights.
The bill changed every night, but each standard opera was repeated three
or four times in the season. New operettas like the "Merry Widow" were
also produced, and, if successful, ran eight or ten times during the
seven months of the season. There was a company of singers consisting of
a "high dramatic" soprano, a "young dramatic," a coloratura, and an
"opera soubrette," all sopranos. There was a leading contralto, a second
contralto to do the very small parts, who was usually a volunteer
without pay, and a "comic old woman," who also took part in the plays.
There was sometimes another volunteer soprano to do pages and the like.
Then there was the "heroic tenor," who is a sort of King and is treated
by the management with some of the ceremony used toward royalty, and the
lyric tenor, quite humble in comparison, and a tenor-buffo for "funny
parts," with sometimes a special operetta tenor when the theatre was
prospering. There were two baritones, "heroic" and "lyric," a "serious"
and a "comic" bass, and one or two other men of more or less anomalous
position who "fill in" and act in the plays. The only singers who never
did anything but sing, were the two "dramatic" sopranos, the first
contralto, and the heroic tenor and baritone. There was a company of
actors besides and all of these, no matter what their standing, were
expected to appear in such operas as "Tannhaeuser" in the singing
contest, in the church scene of "Lohengrin," and as _Flora's_ guests in
"Traviata," to help "dress the stage."

It is not the least of one's troubles as a beginner to stand on the
sta