How charming the music from the gallery,
it helps by two rainy hours so pleasantly. All
honour to Hungarian "Kéler Béla," chapel and
bandmaster "des Herzogl. Nassauischen II.,
Infanterie-Regiments," who has transformed his
noisy out-door band into a perfect orchestra.
Kéler Béla does everything, arranges, beats
time, snatches up a clarionet when there is
danger, or flies at a violin, and fiddles desperately.
All honour to these musicians of all work.

It is like "a breath of the sweet south" when
one hears the opening notes of a Strauss valse.
Is not this master—for he is a master—the
Watteau of musicians? He is more like
Meissonier, for the canvas on which he paints
is very small. We all know the pattern of one
of these charming compositions. Better and
more acceptable without a formal introduction
to embark at once on a soft, sweet, seductive,
and half-melancholy air, which winds and flows in
curves, without jerks or intervals, near the last
finish of which comes a rich swell or protest
from the full brass crowd, as who should say,
"let us join, do," but who are told, "not
yet."

Then repeated, to make us love it a little
better and recollect it. Then crash of cymbals
and drum, and the crowd, let in, have their own
way and rage tumultuously, then disperse and
give way again to our soft air, coming in by
herself like a pensive white-robed maiden who
has lost something, and seeks it mournfully.
Then they crowd again, and all go off.

Of Saturday nights, the administration breaks
out with hospitality into a ball. The gold and
gilding and scarlet and pillars, behind which the
company who do not dance sit in files, look
brilliant in the light. The orchestra is above in
the clouds. There is a perfect prairie of
parquet floor, as free an expanse for the true
dancer as a pond for the skater; and the former,
on the encouragement of Strauss, winding out
from above, flies down like an arrow. But
there is a famine of gentlemen. A few Austrian
officers—with the affection peculiar to that
service—walk up and down arm-in-arm, talking
as if they were crowding their last private
instructions into the few seconds they had to
spare before the sailing of the packet. The
effect of the promenade would be better, as
seen from the benches, if their white coats had
been better made. A back view is like one
vast wrinkle. But they were, so to speak, out of
work; and, as far as dancing went, required a
relief fund and a central committee. A little
master of ceremonies—very like the Emperor
Napoleon in the Punch caricatures—who carries
a cocked-hat, and to whom nobody pays the least
attention, is quite helpless. In the early part
of the evening, he and his cocked-hat are more
considered, for his hands are full of prettily-
printed programmes, with a paper tube behind
holding a pencil—articles which every one is
eager to secure. For the time, therefore, he is
in a sort of spurious request, and is sought with
importunity, until the selfish wants of the
community being all supplied, he sinks of a sudden
into mortifying neglect.

Our dances are in sets. Thus we have our
cards set out in this wise.

1. Valse.
1. Française (quadrille).
1. Polka.
1. Galop.
1. Polka Mazourka.
2. Valse.
2. Française, &c.

We take our polkas about as fast as a galop,
and our galops about as slow as a polka. That
exploded dance still reigns, and enjoys a steady
popularity, so much so that double the time is
given to it that is allowed for the valse or
galop. This, English blood resents. For it is
too bad, when the great parquet is in possession
of but ten couple or so, and Strauss or Gungl is
crashing, and we are flying down and flying
round, while the hundred moderateurs seem like
whirling lighted sticks, and the great lines of
sitting ladies to be riding express in a "merry-
go-round" about us—I say, at such a moment it
is too bad to be brought up violently by a crash,
with then an abrupt silence, as though everything
had broken down.

Meanwhile business is thriving to the right
and left. The dancing brings profit, and
gentlemen in white ties fill up the pauses, by going
in and scattering a Louis or so at the tables. M.
Chevet outside under his glass shedding profits
too by the occasion, and his inner temple is
filled.

                 NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS,
  In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
                    "Pickwick," "Copperfleld," &c.
            Now publishing, PART VII., price 1s., of
                        OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
                       BY CHARLES DICKENS.
                 IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
            With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE.
       London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.

                                    THE
                 NEW CHRISTMAS NUMBER,
                  MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY,
Will be ready early in December, stitched in a cover,
price Fourpence.