Six o’clock
Where , among the wooden fowls and `` impracticable '' flagons , were to be seen very imposing pasties and flasks of champaigne , littered together in most admirable disorder . The confusion naturally incidental to all private theatricals , was ten-fold increased by the circumstances of our projected supper . Cooks and scene-shifters , fiddlers and waiters , were most inextricably mingled ; and as in all similar cases , the least important functionaries took the greatest airs upon them , and appropriated without hesitation whatever came to their hands -- thus the cook would not have scrupled to light a fire with the violoncello of the orchestra ; and I actually caught one of the `` gens de cuisine '' making a `` soufflet '' in a brass helmet I had once worn when astonishing the world as Coriolanus . Six o'clock struck . In another short hour and we begin , thought I , with a sinking heart , as I looked upon the littered stage crowded with hosts of fellows that had nothing to do there . Figaro himself never wished for ubiquity more than I did , as I hastened from place to place , entreating , cursing , begging , scolding , execrating , and imploring by turns . To mend the matter , the devils in the orchestra had begun to tune their instruments , and I had to bawl like a boatswain of a man-of-war , to be heard by the person beside me .