"This," explained my host, "is a fair specimen of the method I employ in preparing a drawing-room sketch. As a rule, my audiences of that class are capital. I always love a well-dressed audience, it is so cheerful. You mayn't perhaps get as much applause as you do from the sixpenny gallery, but then applause often spoils your point. Once, however, I remember singing at a private house in the country to an odd assortment of people. I was informed that the party followed a wedding which had taken place in the morning. If it had followed a funeral it could not have been more gloomy and depressed than it was. I played the piano and the fool for three-quarters of an hour, and anything more dismal than the result it would be impossible to conceive. A temptation seized me suddenly, and I said: 'Ladies and gentlemen,--I am going to reveal to you a secret. Pray don't let it go any further. This is supposed to be a comic entertainment. I don't expect you to laugh at it in the least; but if, during the next sketch, you would only once oblige me with a society smile, it would give me a great deal of encouragement.' The audience for a moment were dumbfounded. They first began to titter, then to laugh, and actually to roar, and for a time I could not proceed with the sketch. They were transformed into a capital and enthusiastic audience, and the hostess told me that both her guests and herself were most grateful to me. I am sometimes amused with the little eccentricities of people who wish to secure my services for their parties. A gentleman once wrote to me to entertain some friends of his, and, added he, 'I trust that your sketches are strictly _comme il faut_, as I have several young daughters.' I was so immensely tickled by this that, rightly or wrongly, I replied that my entertainments _were_ as they should be, for I was recently married, and hoped myself to have several young daughters. He wrote thanking me for this assurance, and I was to consider myself accordingly engaged. There is a story I tell in my book which will bear repetition: A young gentleman once called upon me. He explained that he was acting as a sort of ambassador for a friend of his, Mrs. ----, of Mayfair, who wished me to dine at her house. I replied that I had not the honour of the lady's acquaintance, and, though appreciating her kind invitation, I did not see how I could very well avail myself of it. He said that Prince Somebody or other and La Comtesse de So-and-so would be dining there, and Mrs. ---- would be so pleased if I would join the party, and sing a little song after dinner. 'Oh,' I said, 'if Mrs. ---- wishes to engage me professionally, that is another matter, and if I am at liberty, I will come with much pleasure.' 'Well,' said the ambassador, 'I fancy Mrs. ---- is under the impression that if she includes you in her dinner party it is an understood thing that you sing afterwards.' 'I am afraid I do not understand that,' I said. 'It would not pay me to do so.