CONCERT.—EXTRACT V.
“You reproach me, my dear Mr. Crisp, for not sending you an account of our last two concerts. But the fact is, I have not any thing new to tell you. The music has always been the same: the matrimonial duets are so much à-la-mode, that no other thing in our house is now demanded.
“But if I can write you nothing new about music—you want, I well know you will say, to hear some conversations.
“My dear Mr. Crisp, there is, at this moment, no such thing as conversation. There is only one question asked, meet whom you may, namely; ‘How do you like Gabrielli?’ and only two modes, contradictory to be sure, but very steady, of reply: either, ‘Of all things upon earth!’ or, ‘Not the least bit in the whole world!’
“Well, now I will present you with a specimen, beginning with our last concert but one, and arranging the persons of the drama in the order of their actual appearance.
“But imprimis, I should tell you, that the motive to this concert was a particular request to my father from Dr. King, our old friend, and the chaplain to the British—something—at St. Petersburgh, that he would give a little music to a certain mighty personage, who, somehow or other how, must needs take, transiently at least, a front place in future history,—namely, the famed favourite of the Empress Catherine of Russia, Prince Orloff.
“There, my dear Mr. Crisp! what say you to seeing such a doughty personage as that in a private house, at a private party, of a private individual, fresh imported from the Czarina of all the Russias,—to sip a cup of tea in St. Martin’s-Street?
“I wonder whether future historians will happen to mention this circumstance? I am thinking of sending it to all the keepers of records.
“But I see your rising eyebrow at this name—your start—your disgust—yet big curiosity.
“Well, suppose the family assembled, its honoured chief in the midst—and Tat, tat, tat, tat, at the door.