fy any man to enjoy properly unless he has two hours of drink
and quiet afterwards, up comes the carriage, in bursts my Jemmy, as
fine as a duchess, and scented like our shop. "Come, my dear," says she,
"it's 'Normy' to--night" (or "Annybalony," or the "Nosey di Figaro,"
or the "Gazzylarder," as the case may be). "Mr. Foster strikes off
punctually at eight, and you know it's the fashion to be always present
at the very first bar of the aperture." And so off we are obliged to
budge, to be miserable for five hours, and to have a headache for the
next twelve, and all because it's the fashion!

After the aperture, as they call it, comes the opera, which, as I am
given to understand, is the Italian for singing. Why they should sing in
Italian, I can't conceive; or why they should do nothing BUT sing. Bless
us! how I used to long for the wooden magpie in the "Gazzylarder" to fly
up to the top of the church-steeple, with the silver spoons, and see the
chaps with the pitchforks come in and carry off that wicked Don June.
Not that I don't admire Lablash, and Rubini, and his brother, Tomrubini:
him who has that fine bass voice, I mean, and acts the Corporal in the
first piece, and Don June in the second; but three hours is a LITTLE too
much, for you can't sleep on those little rickety seats in the boxes.

The opera is bad enough; but what is that to the bally? You SHOULD
have seen my Jemmy the first night when she stopped to see it; and
when Madamsalls Fanny and Theresa Hustler came forward, along with a
gentleman, to dance, you should have seen how Jemmy stared, and our girl
blushed, when Madamsall Fanny, coming forward, stood on the tips of only
five of her toes, and raising up the other five, and the foot belonging
to them, almost to her shoulder, twirled round, and round, and round,
like a teetotum, for a couple of minutes or more; and as she settled
down, at last, on both feet, in a natural decent posture, you should
have heard how the house roared with applause, the boxes clapping with
all their might, and waving their handkerchiefs; the pit shouting,
"Bravo!" Some people, who, I suppose, were rather angry at such an
exhibition, threw bunches of flowers at her; and what do you think she
did? Why, hang me, if she did not come forward, as though nothing had
happened, gather up the things they had thrown at her, smile, press
them to her heart, and begin whirling round again faster than ever. Talk
about coolness, I never saw su