A story is told of Balfe while he belonged to the Drury Lane orchestra. "Vauxhall Gardens" were then in vogue, and there was a call for the Drury Lane musicians to go there to play. The "Gardens" were a long way off, and there was no tram-car or other means of transportation for their patrons. Those who hadn't a coach had no way of getting there, and it must have cost Balfe considerable to go and come each day. He decided to find lodgings near the Gardens to save himself expense. He looked and looked, on the day he first went out. Others wanted the same thing, and it was not easy to place himself. However, by evening, he had decided to take anything he could find; so he engaged a room at an unpromising looking house. He was kept waiting by the landlady for a long time in the passageway, but at last he was escorted up to his room, and, being tired out, he immediately went to bed and to sleep. In the morning he began to look about, and to his horror and amazement he found a corpse stowed away in a cupboard. Some member of his landlady's family who occupied the bed had died. When he applied for the room, he had been made to wait while the previous occupant was hastily tucked out of sight. After that, he never hired lodgings without first looking into the cupboards and under the bed. Balfe was a good deal of a wag, and his waggishness was not always in good taste, as shown by an incident at carnival time in Rome. His resemblance to a great patroness of his, the Countess Mazzaras, a well-known woman of much dignity, induced him upon that occasion to dress himself in women's clothes, stand in a window conspicuously, and make the most extraordinary and hideous faces at the monks and other churchmen who passed. Every one gave the credit of this remarkable conduct to the Countess Mazzaras. Balfe had pianos carried up to the sleeping rooms of great singers before they got out of bed, and thus made them listen to his newly composed tunes. He sometimes announced himself by the titles of his famous tunes, as, "We May Be Happy Yet," and was admitted, and received as readily as if he had resorted to pasteboard politeness. In short, Balfe was never a great musician, yet he had all the eccentricities that one might expect a great musician to have, and he succeeded quite as well as if he had had genius. Balfe was born May 15, 1808, and died October 20, 1870. THE BOHEMIAN GIRL CHARACTERS OF THE OPERA WITH THE ORIGINAL CAST Arline Miss Romer. Gipsy Queen Miss Betts. Thaddeus Mr. Harrison. Devilshoof Mr. Stretton. Count Arnheim Mr. Borrani. Florestein Mr. Durnset. Scene laid in Hungary. Composer: Michael Balfe. Author: Alfred Bunn. First sung at London, England, Her Majesty's Theatre, Drury Lane, Nov. 27, 1843. ACT I