Music on such an occasion is quite out of place, and I never can understand why the hostess arranges to have any. A grand reception, I take it, is a reception, and not a concert. It is impossible to combine the two. I do not blame the people on these occasions for talking: they cannot even get into the room where the music is. Sometimes, by adopting the fashionable process of spitefully digging your way through people, you may get near the piano, and even a glimpse of the singer. Yes, there he is--a well-known drawing-room tenor, perhaps, who has received fifty guineas to sing a couple of songs. You see him simply indulging, apparently, in a dumb-show performance. The windows are open behind him, and there is a perfect din of the "clinking" of the harness of hundreds of horses in the road outside, intermingled with lusty shouts from the linkmen, with trombone voices, far and near: "Lady Peckham Rye's carriage next;" "Col. Waterloo Rhodes's carriage stops the way;" "Mrs. Bompleton's servant," "Coming out," "Coming in," "Baron Bosch's carriage--no servant." Fortunately I cannot arrive at such parties until about a quarter to twelve at night (having, of course, my usual engagement at the Savoy to fulfil), and by that time the rooms have cleared a little, either through departure of guests for another party or for supper below. The chairs are suddenly produced in a semi-circle round the piano, and I am turned on to wind up the evening, having previously wound up myself. And I do wind up myself sometimes, even to the extent of getting the livelier and more juvenile members of the aristocracy, as the end of my entertainment approaches, to join, without invitation, in the chorus of "The Duke of Seven Dials," "See me Dance the Polka," or "The Happy Fatherland," according to the jingling nature of the song.