tter as it
stood, as I had only to wait a little with proper patience, and I had no
fears but that my friend Charley would become the hero of a very pretty
episode for the mess.

"So I suppose you must feel considerably bored by this kind of thing," I
said, endeavouring to draw him out.

"Why, I do," replied he, "and I do not. The girl is very pretty. The
place is dull in the morning; and altogether it helps to fill up time."

"Well," said I, "you are always fortunate, Curzon. You have ever your
share of what floating luck the world affords."

"It is not exactly all luck, my dear friend; for, as I shall explain to
you--"

"Not now," replied I, "for I have not yet breakfasted." So saying I
turned into the coffee-room, leaving the worthy adjutant to revel in his
fancied conquest, and pity such unfortunates as myself.

After an early dinner at the club-house, I hastened down to the theatre,
where numerous preparations for the night were going forward. The
green-room was devoted to the office of a supper-room, to which the
audience had been invited. The dressing-rooms were many of them filled
with the viands destined for the entertainment. Where, among the wooden
fowls and "impracticable" flagons, were to be seen very imposing pasties
and flasks of champaigne, littered together in most admirable disorder.
The confusion naturally incidental to all private theatricals, was
ten-fold increased by the circumstances of our projected supper. Cooks
and scene-shifters, fiddlers and waiters, were most inextricably
mingled; and as in all similar cases, the least important functionaries
took the greatest airs upon them, and appropriated without hesitation
whatever came to their hands--thus the cook would not have scrupled to
light a fire with the violoncello of the orchestra; and I actually
caught one of the "gens de cuisine" making a "soufflet" in a brass
helmet I had once worn when astonishing the world as Coriolanus.

Six o'clock struck. In another short hour and we begin, thought I, with
a sinking heart, as I looked upon the littered stage crowded with hosts
of fellows that had nothing to do there. Figaro himself never wished for
ubiquity more than I did, as I hastened from place to place, entreating,
cursing, begging, scolding, execrating, and imploring by turns. To mend
the matter, the devils in the orchestra had begun to tune their
instruments, and I had to bawl like a boatswain of a man-of-war, to be
heard by