My friend—­we will call him TOMMY TUCKER, (for I have frequently encountered him at supper, and am aware of his capacity)—­is full of information.  Some of our neighbours of an inquiring turn are asking one another who that is, and who this is, and so forth; and when the answers are incorrect, or even before the answers can be given, TOMMY TUCKER has replied in a low voice, with a view to imparting general information gratis, that So-and-So, in scarlet and silver, is Mr. BLACKSTONE, of BLACKSTONE & SONS, head of the great Coal Merchant Firm; that the man in blue and silver, supposed to be a Hungarian attache, is the junior partner in BUNNUMS & Co., the Big Cake Purveyor; and that the warlike person, with a jingling sabre, is not a Prussian officer, but is Deputy JONES, in the gorgeous uniform of the Old Buckshire Yeomanry; and when he’s in the City, where he began in the usual way that millionnaires always do begin, by sweeping out an office, he is simply JONES, of Messrs. BROWN, JONES, ROBINSON & Co., Wharfingers.  TOMMY TUCKER knows everybody, and everything about everybody, too.  Who is that lady with a splendid tiara of diamonds?—­that is the Duchess of BURLINGTON, “who”—­and here, in a semi-whisper, intended for everybody’s information, he tells how those brilliants come out for “one night only,” and how they will be called for to-morrow morning by a confidential agent from POPSHOPPER’s Establishment in the Great Loan Land.  TOM TUCKER is full of these stories.  There isn’t a person he doesn’t know, until happening to recognise here a one and there a one, I correct him of my own private and personal knowledge, when he frankly admits that I am right; and after casually explaining how he does occasionally mistake the Countess of DUNNOYER for Lady ELIZABETH MARTIN, he goes off at a tangent, and picks out several other distinguished-looking personages, numbering them as “first to right,” “second to left,” and so forth, as if in a collection of wax-works, giving to each one of them a name and a history.  His acquaintance with the private life of the aristocracy and the plutocracy is so extensive that I can only wonder at his knowledge, his or marvel at wondrous powers of ready invention.

[Illustration:  Birds can sing, but wouldn’t sing, and couldn’t be made to sing, at Covent Garden, Wednesday, July 8.]

So it goes on.  Then enter the chief characters.  All rise; the orchestra plays the “National Anthem,” in German, suppose, out of compliment to our Imperial visitors; and afterwards in English (translated, and, I fancy, “transposed"), in honour of H.R.H. the Prince and Princess.  All the wax-work figures form in a row, under the direction of Lord Chamberlain LATHOM; the machinery is put in motion; they all bow to the audience; glasses are riveted on them; everybody is craning and straining to get a good view; the people in the gallery and just over the Royal Box loyally enjoy the scene, being quite unable to see any of the distinguished persons who are, in this instance, “quite beneath their notice.”  And then Signor MANCINELLI turns his back on everybody, and gets to business.