_Will._ Well, really you're a charming _furry_-ner. Once more:-- _Will._ What can you do? _Cat._ My pictures folk applaud; They say they're scratchy, but resemble _Claude_. I'm not much of a linguist, my good friend, But I've a-_talion_ at my finger's end; I can't dance well amongst young ladies, yet I come out very well in a _puss-et._ I sing at times like any _cat-a-lani_. _Will._ Your favourite opera is---- _Cat._ The _Purr_-itani. In the course of the piece King Noodlehead sings a song in which some fun is made of the conventionalities of Italian opera:-- At the Opera, and at Covent Garden as well, I have always observed that the expiring swell, Tho' you'd fancy just there he'd be shortest of breath, Sings a difficult song just before his own death. Such as diddle, diddle, diddle, Chip chop ri chooral i day, That's how they arrange things at the Operay. And I've likewise remarked that the young hero-ine Walks about in a low dress of thin white sat-in, Defying the fog, and the cold and the damp, And also rheumatics, and likewise the cramp. With a diddle, diddle, diddle, etc. I've remarked that the peasants who come on the scene, Are, p'raps, awkward, but still most offensively clean, They lay monstrous stress on the "_whens_" and the "_whats_," And sing--"Oh, joy"--together like mere idi-ots. With a diddle, diddle, diddle, etc. One of the prettiest and wittiest of Planché's adaptations from Perrault's store was "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood," seen at Covent Garden in 1840. The Beauty was the Princess Is-a-Belle--of course, Mme. Vestris; the inevitable King--Thomas Noddy of No-Land--was the inevitable Bland; James Vining was Prince Perfect; and Brougham was a woodcutter--one Larry O'Log. But the most whimsical character in the piece was played by Harley--the Baron Factotum, "Great-Grand-Lord-Everything," who may be compared with Pooh-Bah in Mr. Gilbert's "Mikado." In "The Mikado," Ko-Ko is "Lord High Executioner of Titipu," and Pooh-Bah is "Lord High Everything Else"--he is "First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the Buckhounds, Groom of the Backstairs, Archbishop of Titipu, and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one." The Baron Factotum is even more embarrassed with offices and duties. As he says at one juncture:--