Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/67

 amusing from the immense pains bestowed upon them by the midshipmen.

It answered as an amusement for ten days, and pleased Captain Grey excessively. Their theatricals have gone on, too; the sailors have acted twice with great success, and the officers twice, and the theatre is to close the first cool night we have, with ‘High Life below Stairs,’ and ‘L’Ours et le Pasha,’ done into English by his Excellency, and consequently it is got up with great care. Mr. is the stage manager, and we flatter ourselves, though he is particularly precise and serious, that he has formed an attachment (perfectly correct and Platonic) for Wright, he and she are in such constant communication about the ladies’ dresses for these plays.

I have made the dresses myself for the Sultana and her attendant in ‘L’Ours et le Pasha,’ and that little Douglas looks so pretty in his Turkish costume! And I made, too, a turban for another, who is to be the Sultan. He looked so horribly shy when he came to try it on, sitting before the glass in his midshipman’s dress—a long false beard, and a