I have already become an adopted Englishman. I drink my tea twice a day, I eat my “tostes” well buttered. I read my Gazette scrupulously every morning and every evening. I have been waiting with impatience for one of those plays to be performed which have obtained universal applause, such as those, for instance, of the “divine” Shakespeare. I have at last been rewarded. Yesterday I read on the playbill (_affiche_), “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.” So I said to my sister, who is with me, “We must go and see ‘Hamlet.’” We set out, therefore, for Covent Garden. We had intended to take tickets for the boxes, but there were none left. We tried to get into the first gallery (our _premières loges_), but there were no seats to be had there. I proposed then that we should try the upper gallery, but we were advised not to. There remained the pit. This was also full. I remained standing, and my sister obtained half a seat at the end of a crowded bench. It was all most brilliant. The house, which is square and partly gray and partly gilded, without harmony of ornament or design, is not imposing in itself. But the crowd of spectators, the quantity of lights, the rapt attention of the coloured crowd, make a striking _ensemble_. No sooner had we seated ourselves than to my extreme astonishment something fell on to my sister’s hat. It turned out to be a piece of orange peel. Here I must mention that an essential part of a lady’s _coiffure_ in London is a flat round hat, which is a most ingenious device of coquetry. It heightens beauty and diminishes ugliness; it confers grace and play to the features. It is impossible to tell you all the varied effects an Englishwoman can derive from her hat. Curiously enough, the hat is not worn on State occasions, and neither at Court nor at assemblies, nor even in the _premières loges_ of the theatre, and its place is taken by French feathers. I was just wondering whence the piece of orange peel had proceeded when I saw a man come from behind the scenes with a large broom in his hand. Knowing that Shakespeare makes use of everything that pertains to human life, I thought that “Hamlet” was going to begin by a sweeping scene. I was mistaken. It was only a servant who was cleaning the front of the stage, which I now noticed was covered with the remains of the feast of oranges and apples which was taking place in the upper gallery, and of which my sister had received a small sample on her hat.