The things we do!

"
"Who is that cavalry officer in a white waistcoat talking to the Jew with
the beard?" asks the Colonel.
"He, he! That cavalry officer is another literary man of celebrity, and
by profession an attorney. But he has quitted the law for the Muses, and
it would appear that the Nine are never wooed except by gentlemen with
mustachios."
"Never wrote a verse in my life," says the Colonel, laughing, and
stroking his own.
"For I remark so many literary gentlemen with that decoration. The Jew
with the beard, as you call him, is Herr von Lungen, the eminent
hautboy-player. The three next gentlemen are Mr. Smee, of the Royal
Academy (who is shaved as you perceive), and Mr. Moyes and Mr. Cropper,
who are both very hairy about the chin. At the piano, singing,
accompanied by Mademoiselle Lebrun, is Signor Mezzocaldo, the great
barytone from Rome. Professor Quartz and Baron Hammerstein, celebrated
geologists from Germany, are talking with their illustrious confrere, Sir
Robert Craxton, in the door.


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