er, by evening, he had decided to take anything he could find; so
he engaged a room at an unpromising looking house. He was kept waiting
by the landlady for a long time in the passageway, but at last he was
escorted up to his room, and, being tired out, he immediately went to
bed and to sleep. In the morning he began to look about, and to his
horror and amazement he found a corpse stowed away in a cupboard. Some
member of his landlady's family who occupied the bed had died. When he
applied for the room, he had been made to wait while the previous
occupant was hastily tucked out of sight. After that, he never hired
lodgings without first looking into the cupboards and under the bed.

Balfe was a good deal of a wag, and his waggishness was not always in
good taste, as shown by an incident at carnival time in Rome. His
resemblance to a great patroness of his, the Countess Mazzaras, a
well-known woman of much dignity, induced him upon that occasion to
dress himself in women's clothes, stand in a window conspicuously, and
make the most extraordinary and hideous faces at the monks and other
churchmen who passed. Every one gave the credit of this remarkable
conduct to the Countess Mazzaras. Balfe had pianos carried up to the
sleeping rooms of great singers before they got out of bed, and thus
made them listen to his newly composed tunes. He sometimes announced
himself by the titles of his famous tunes, as, "We May Be Happy Yet,"
and was admitted, and received as readily as if he had resorted to
pasteboard politeness.

In short, Balfe was never a great musician, yet he had all the
eccentricities that one might expect a great musician to have, and he
succeeded quite as well as if he had had genius.

Balfe was born May 15, 1808, and died October 20, 1870.

THE BOHEMIAN GIRL

CHARACTERS OF THE OPERA WITH THE ORIGINAL CAST

Arline Miss Romer.
Gipsy Queen Miss Betts.
Thaddeus Mr. Harrison.
Devilshoof Mr. Stretton.
Count Arnheim Mr. Borrani.
Florestein Mr. Durnset.

Scene laid in Hungary.

Composer: Michael Balfe.
Author: Alfred Bunn.

First sung at London, England, Her Majesty's Theatre, Drury Lane, Nov.
27, 1843.

ACT I

Many years ago, when noblemen, warriors, gipsies, lovers, enemies and
all sorts and conditions of men fraternized without drawing very fine
distinc