~198~~ The Opera, to the man of fashion, is the only tolerable place of public amusement in which the varied orders of society are permitted to participate. Here, lolling at his ease, in a snug box on the first circle, in dignified security from the vulgar gaze, he surveys the congregated mass who fill the arena of the house, deigns occasionally a condescending nod of recognition to some less fortunate _roue_, or younger brother of a titled family, who is forcing his way through the well-united phalanx of vulgar faces that guard the entrance to _Fop's Alley_; or, if he should be in a state of single blessedness, inclines his head a little forward to cast round an inquiring glance, a sort of preliminary overture, to some fascinating daughter of fashion, whose attention he wishes to engage for an amorous interchange of significant looks and melting expressions during the last act of the opera. For the first, he would not be thought so _outre_ as to witness it--the attempt would require a sacrifice of the dessert and Madeira, and completely revolutionize ~199~~ the regularity of his dinner arrangement. The divertissement he surveys from the side wings of the stage, to which privilege he is entitled as an annual subscriber; trifles a little badinage with some well-known operatic intriguant, or favourite danseusej approves the finished movements of the male artistes, inquires of the manager or committee the forthcoming novelties, strolls into the green room to make his selection of a well-turned ankle or a graceful shape, and, having made an appointment for some non play night, makes one of the distinguished group of operatic cognoscenti who form the circle of taste in the centre of the stage on the fall of the curtain.