“Why, I believe that. I may confess to you the real state of matters. She was devilishly struck with me the first time we rehearsed together. We soon got up a little flirtation; but the other night when I played Mirabel to her, it finished the affair. She was quite nervous, and could scarcely go through with her part. I saw it, and upon my soul I am sorry for it; she’s a prodigiously fine girl—such lips and such teeth! Egad I was delighted when you came; for, you see, I was in a manner obliged to take one line of character, and I saw pretty plainly where it must end; and you know with you it’s quite different, she’ll laugh and chat, and all that sort of thing, but she’ll not be carried away by her feelings; you understand me?”
“Oh, perfectly; it’s quite different, as you observed.”
If I had not been supported internally during this short dialogue by the recently expressed opinion of the dear Fanny herself upon my friend Curzon’s merits, I think I should have been tempted to take the liberty of wringing his neck off. However, the affair was much better 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 the person beside me.