r dinner
with the third bottle of wine.

_Moral._--Get to the fourth as quickly as possible.

_Twenty-onethly._--Life is a perpetual Epitaph.

_Moral._--Better than most epitaphs, because it's short. If you've got
to write one remember this.

The last is so melancholy that I can only sit down and think. At present
this will do for my Sunday Meditations.

[Illustration: THE MEDITATIONIST.]

CHAPTER XXII.

THE PROGRAMME--THE FARCE.

For some days Milburd, Mrs. Orby Frimmely, Cazell, Chilvern, and the
Medfords have been working hard at a new piece.

The order of the evening is dinner for a few, then theatricals to amuse
the many, then refreshments, then a dance, and finally supper.

The Signor is in great force.

"My dear," he says to his wife, "I shall do my lit-tel step. I shall
valse."

"Mr. Regniati," returns Madame, severely, "you will do nothing of the
sort."

This rather damps his ardour; and the fact of being unable to consult
his nephew on the best means of obtaining his chance of doing his
"lit-tel steps," still further depresses him.

He is perpetually looking into the theatre-room, and as often begging
pardon, and being turned out.

The night arrives. I receive the guests as president, and I take the
lady I don't want to in to dinner.

Dinner successful.

Madame rises at the proper moment; and after an hour, and the arrival of
several carriages full, the gong summons us to the theatre.

Here Medford and myself hand round the programmes, and Miss Medford
performs on the piano.

The programmes are in her writing too. Most neatly done.

_This evening will be represented, for the first time on any
stage, an entirely new and original Musical Farce, entitled_

PENELOPE ANNE.

WRITTEN BY R. MILBURD, ESQ.

_Dramatis Personae._

DON JOSE JOHN BOXOS DE CABALLEROS Y }
CARVALHOS Y REGALIAS DI SALAMANCA, } S. CAZELL.
generally known, and without familiarity }
mentioned, as "JOHN BOX" }

COUNT CORNELIUS DE COXO, Land-Margrave }
of Somewhere, with a Palazzo in Venice, } R. MILBURD.
commonly known as "JAMES COX" }

KARL, the German Waiter T. CHILVERN.

MRS. PENELOPE ANNE KNOX MRS. ORBY FRIMMELY.

MAJOR-GENERAL BOUNCER, B.L.H. CAPTAIN BYRTON.