“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.

As seven o’clock struck, I peeped through the small aperture in the curtain, and saw, to my satisfaction, mingled, I confess, with fear, that the house was nearly filled—­the lower tier of boxes entirely so.  There were a great many ladies handsomely dressed, chatting gaily with their chaperons, and I recognised some of my acquaintances on every side; in fact, there was scarcely a family of rank in the county that had not at least some member of it present.  As the orchestra struck up the overture to Don Giovanni, I retired from my place to inspect the arrangements behind.

Before the performance of the “Family Party,” we were to have a little one-act piece called “a day in Madrid,” written by myself—­the principal characters being expressly composed for “Miss Ersler and Mr. Lorrequer.”

The story of this trifle, it is not necessary to allude to; indeed, if it were, I should scarcely have patience to do so, so connected is my recollection of it with the distressing incident which followed.