It was the following summer, while I was still in London, officially waiting for Uncle Bindley at the Horse Guards to find me an appointment, and in fact just lounging about the town and leading the gay life. It wasn’t quite so gay as it had been, for while I was still something of an idol in military circles, my gloss was beginning to wear a bit thin with the public. Yesterday’s hero is soon forgotten, and while Elspeth and I had no lack of invitations during the season, it seemed to me that I wasn’t quite so warmly fěted as I had been. I wasn’t invariably the centre of attraction any longer; some chaps even seemed to get testy if I mentioned Afghanistan, and at one assembly I heard a fellow say that he personally knew every damned stone of Piper’s Fort by now, and could have conducted sightseers over the ruins.

That’s by the way, but it was one of the reasons that I began to find life boring me in the months that followed, and I was all the readier for mischief when the chance came.

I forget exactly what took me to one of the Haymarket theatres on an afternoon in May—there was an actress, or an acrobat she may have been, whom I was pushing about just then, so it may have been her. In any event, I was standing in the wings with some of the Gents and Mooners,15 during a rehearsal, when I noticed a female practising dance-steps on the other side of the stage. It was her shape that caught my eye, for she was in the tight fleshings that ballet-dancers wear, and I was admiring her legs when she turned in profile and to my astonishment I recognized Rosanna.

She was wearing her hair a new way, parted in the centre, and held behind her head in a kerchief, but there was no mistaking the face or the figure.

“Splendid piece, ain’t she?” says one of the Mooners. “They say Lumley”—he was the manager—“pays her a fortune. ’Pon my soul, I would myself, what?”

Oho, I thought to myself, what’s this? I asked the Mooner, offhand, who she might be.

“Why, she’s his new danseuse, don’t you know,” says he. “It seems that opera hasn’t been bringing in the tin lately, so Lumley imported her specially to dance between the acts. Thinks she’ll make a great hit, and with those legs I’ll be bound she will. See here.” And he pushed a printed bill into my hand. It read:

HER MAJESTY’S THEATRE

Special Attraction

Mr. Benjamin Lumley begs to announce that between the acts of the Opera, Donna Lola Montez, of the Teatro Real, Seville, will have the honour to make her first appearance in England in the Original Spanish dance, El Oleano.