had overheard enough to
know that this was but the case of a pair of lovers who, with less  to  fear
of life,  were yet - after the  manner of their kind  - more timid  of heart
than he.  Curiosity drew  him from his  warm trough  to the edge of the hay.
Lying prone, he advanced his head and peered down.
     In the  space of cropped meadow between the  barn and the hedge stood a
man and a woman, both  young. The man was a well-set-up, comely fellow, with
a fine head of  chestnut hair tied in a queue by a broad bow of black satin.
He was dressed with  certain tawdry attempts at ostentatious embellishments,
which  did not prepossess one at  first glance in his  favour. His coat of a
fashionable cut  was of faded plum-coloured velvet edged  with silver  lace,
whose glory had  long since  departed. He affected  ruffles, but for want of
starch  they  hung  like  weeping  willows over hands  that  were  fine  and
delicate. His breeches  were of plain black  cloth, and  his black stockings
were of cotton  - matters entirely out of harmony with his magnificent coat.
His  shoes,  stout  and  serviceable,  were decked with  buckles  of  cheap,
lack-lustre   paste.  But  for   his  engaging  and  ingenuous  countenance,
Andre-Louis must have set  him down as  a  knight of  that order which lives
dishonestly by  its wits.  As it was, he suspended  judgment  whilst pushing
investigation further by a study of the girl. At the outset, be it confessed
that   it  was  a  study   that  attracted   him   prodigiously.   And  this
notwithstanding the fact that, bookish and studious as were his ways, and in
despite of his years, it was far  from his habit to waste  consideration  on
femininity.
     The child - she was no more than that, perhaps twenty at the most
     - possessed, in addition to the allurements of face and shape that went
very near perfection, a sparkling vivacity and a  grace of movement the like
of  which Andre-Louis did not remember ever before to have beheld  assembled
in  one person.  And her  voice too  - that musical, silvery voice  that had
awakened him - possessed  in its exquisite modulations an allurement of  its
own that must have been irresistible, he thought, in the ugliest of her sex.
She wore a hooded mantle of green cloth, and the hood being thrown back, her
dainty head was all revealed to him. There were glints of gold struck by the
morning sun from her  light nut-brown hair  that hung in a cluster  of curls
about her oval face.  Her complexion was of a delicacy that he could compare
only with a rose petal. He could  not at that distance discern the colour of
her  eyes, but he guessed them blue, as he admired the sparkle of them under
the fine, dark line of eyebrows.
     He could not  have told you why, but he was conscious that it aggrieved
him to find her so  intimate with this pretty young fellow, who  was  partly
clad, as it appeared, in the cast-offs of a nobleman. He could not guess her
station, but the speech that  reached  him was cultured in tone and word. He
strained to listen.
     "I shall  know no peace, Leandre, until we are  safely wedded," she was
saying. "Not until then shall I count myself beyond his reach. And yet if we
marry without his consent, we but make trouble for ourselves, and of gaining
his consent I almost despair."
     Evidently, thought Andre-Louis, her  father was a man of sense, who saw
through the shabby finery of M. Leandre, and was not to be  dazzled by cheap
paste buckles.
     "My dear  Climene," the  young man was answering her, standing squarely
before her, and holding both her hands, "you are wrong  to  despond. If I do
not reveal to you all the stratagem that I have  prepared to win the consent
of your  unnatural parent,  it  is because  I  am  loath to rob  you  of the
pleasure  of the surprise that is in store. But place your faith  in me, and
in that  ingenious  friend of whom I have spoken, and who  should be here at
any moment."
     The stilted ass!  Had he learnt that speech by heart in advance, or was
he by  nature a pedantic idiot who expressed himself in  this set and formal
manner? How  came so sweet  a blossom to  waste her perfumes on such a prig?
And what a ridiculous name the creature owned!
     Thus Andre-Louis  to  himself from  his observatory. Meanwhile, she was
speaking.
     "That  is what  my heart desires, Leandre, but I am beset by fears lest
your  stratagem should be too late. I am to  marry this horrible  Marquis of
Sbrufadelli this very day. He arrives by noon. He comes to sign the contract
- to make me the Marchioness of Sbrufadelli. Oh!" It was a cry of pain  from
that tender  young heart.  "The very name burns my lips. If  it were mine  I
could never utter  it - never! The man  is so  detestable. Save me, Leandre.
Save me! You are my only hope."
     Andre-Louis  was conscious of a pang  of disappointment. She  failed to
soar to  the  heights he had expected of her. She was  evidently infected by
the stilted manner of her ridiculous lover. There was an  atrocious  lack of
sincerity  about her  words.  They  touched  his mind, but  left  his  heart
unmoved. Perhaps this was because  of his antipathy to M. Leandre and to the
issue involved.
     So her father was marrying her to a marquis! That  implied birth on her
side. And yet she was content to pair off with this dull young adventurer in
the tarnished lace! It was, he supposed, the sort of thing to be expected of
a sex that all philosophy had taught him to regard as  the maddest part of a
mad species.
     "It shall  never be!" M. Leandre  was storming  passionately. "Never! I
swear it!" And he shook his puny fist at the blue vault of heaven
     -  Ajax defying Jupiter. "Ah, but  here  comes  our subtle  friend... "
(Andre-Louis did not catch the name, M. Leandre having at that moment turned
to face the gap in the hedge.) "He will bring us news, I know."
     Andre-Louis looked also in the direction of the gap. Through it emerged
a lean, slight man in a rusty cloak and a  three-cornered hat worn well down
over his nose so as to shade his face. And when presently he doffed this hat
and  made a  sweeping  bow to  the  young  lovers, Andre-Louis  confessed to
himself  that  had he been  cursed with such a  hangdog countenance he would
have worn his hat in precisely such a manner, so as to conceal as much of it
as  possible.  If M. Leandre appeared to be wearing, in part  at least,  the
cast-offs of nobleman, the newcomer appeared to be wearing  the cast-offs of
M.  Leandre. Yet despite  his vile clothes and  viler  face,  with its three
days'  growth of beard, the fellow  carried himself with a  certain air;  he
positively strutted as he advanced,  and he made a  leg in a manner that was
courtly and practised.
     "Monsieur," said he,  with  the air  of a  conspirator, "the  time  for
action has arrived, and so has the Marquis... That is why."
     The young lovers sprang apart  in consternation;  Climene  with clasped
hands, parted  lips, and  a bosom  that raced  distractingly under its white
fichu-menteur; M. Leandre agape, the very picture of foolishness and dismay.
     Meanwhile the newcomer rattled  on. "I was  at the inn an hour ago when
he  descended  there,  and  I  studied  him  attentively  whilst he  was  at
breakfast. Having done so, not a single doubt remains  me of our success. As
for what he looks like, I could entertain  you at length upon the fashion in
which nature has designed  his gross fatuity.  But that is no matter. We are
concerned with what he is, with the wit of him. And  I tell you  confidently
that I find him so dull  and stupid that you may be confident he will tumble
headlong into each and all of  the traps I have  so  cunningly prepared  for
him."
     "Tell  me, tell me! Speak!" Climene implored him, holding out her hands
in a supplication no man of sensibility could have resisted. And then on the
instant she caught her breath on a faint scream. "My father!" she exclaimed,
turning  distractedly from one to the other of those two. "He is  coming! We
are lost!"
     "You must fly, Climene!" said M. Leandre.
     "Too late!" she sobbed. "Too late! He is here."
     "Calm,  mademoiselle,  calm!" the subtle  friend  was urging her. "Keep
calm and trust to me. I promise you that all shall be well."
     "Oh!" cried M. Leandre, limply.  "Say what you will, my friend, this is
ruin -  the end of all  our  hopes. Your wits will  never extricate us  from
this. Never!"
     Through the gap strode now an enormous man with an inflamed  moon  face
and a great nose, decently dressed after the  fashion  of a solid bourgeois.
There was no mistaking his anger,  but the expression  that it found was  an
amazement to Andre-Louis.
     "Leandre, you're an  imbecile! Too much  phlegm, too much  phlegm! Your
words wouldn't  convince a ploughboy! Have you considered what they  mean at
all? Thus," he cried, and casting his round hat from him in a broad gesture,
he  took  his stand at M. Leandre's  side, and repeated the very  words that
Leandre had lately  uttered,  what time the three  observed  him coolly  and
attentively.
     "Oh, say what you will, my  friend, this is  ruin - the end of all  our
hopes. Your wits will never extricate us from this. Never!"
     A frenzy of despair vibrated in his  accents. He swung again to face M.
Leandre.  "Thus,"  he bade  him  contemptuously.  "Let  the passion of  your
hopelessness express itself in your voice. Consider  that you are not asking
Scaramouche here whether he has put  a  patch  in  your breeches. You  are a
despairing lover expressing... "
     He checked abruptly, startled. Andre-Louis, suddenly realizing what was
afoot, and  how duped he had been,  had loosed his laughter. The sound of it
pealing and booming  uncannily  under  the  great  roof  that so immediately
confined him was startling to those below.
     The fat man was the first to recover, and he announced it after his own
fashion in one of the ready sarcasms in which he habitually dealt.
     "Hark!"  he  cried, "the  very  gods  laugh  at  you, Leandre." Then he
addressed the roof of the barn and its invisible tenant. "Hi! You there!"
     Andre-Louis  revealed himself by a  further  protrusion  of his tousled
head.
     "Good-morning,"  said  he, pleasantly.  Rising now  on  his  knees, his
horizon  was suddenly extended to include the broad common beyond the hedge.
He beheld  there an enormous  and  very  battered  travelling chaise, a cart
piled up with timbers partly visible  under the sheet  of  oiled canvas that
covered  them, and  a sort of house on  wheels equipped with a tin  chimney,
from which  the  smoke was slowly curling. Three heavy  Flemish horses and a
couple  of donkeys  - all of them hobbled  - were  contentedly cropping  the
grass in the neighbourhood  of these vehicles.  These, had he perceived them
sooner, must have given him the clue to the queer scene that had been played
under  his eyes. Beyond the hedge other  figures were  moving. Three at that
moment came  crowding into the gap  -  a saucy-faced girl with  a tip-tilted
nose,  whom  he supposed  to be  Columbine,  the soubrette; a  lean,  active
youngster, who  must be  the lackey Harlequin;, and  another rather  loutish
youth who might be a zany or an apothecary.
     All this he took in  at  a comprehensive glance that  consumed no  more
time  than  it  had taken him  to  say  good-morning.  To that  good-morning
Pantaloon replied in a bellow:
     "What the devil are you doing up there?"
     "Precisely  the same  thing  that  you are  doing down  there," was the
answer. "I am trespassing."
     "Eh?"  said Pantaloon,  and  looked  at  his  companions, some  of  the
assurance beaten out of his  big red  face.  Although the thing was one that
they did habitually, to hear it called by its proper name was disconcerting.
     "Whose land is this?" he asked, with diminishing assurance.
     Andre-Louis answered, whilst drawing on his stockings. "I believe it to
be the property of the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr."
     "That's a high-sounding name. Is the gentleman severe?"
     "The  gentleman," said Andre-Louis, "is the  devil; or rather, I should
prefer to say upon reflection, that the devil is a gentleman by comparison.
     "And   yet,"  interposed   the  villainous-looking  fellow  who  played
Scaramouche,  "by  your  own  confessing  you  don't hesitate,  yourself, to
trespass upon his property."
     "Ah,  but then,  you  see, I am a  lawyer. And lawyers  are notoriously
unable to observe the law,  just  as actors are notoriously  unable  to act.
Moreover,  sir,  Nature  imposes  her limits upon us,  and  Nature  conquers
respect for law as  she  conquers all  else. Nature  conquered me last night
when I had  got as far as this. And so I slept here  without regard  for the
very  high and  puissant  Marquis de La  Tour d'Azyr.  At the  same time, M.
Scaramouche, you'll observe  that  I did not  flaunt  my  trespass  quite as
openly as you and your companions.
     Having  donned his boots,  Andre-Louis came nimbly to the ground in his
shirt-sleeves, his riding-coat over his arm. As he  stood  there to don  it,
the little cunning eyes  of the heavy father conned him in detail. Observing
that his  clothes, if plain, were of a good fashion, that  his shirt was  of
fine cambric, and that he expressed himself like  a man of culture, such  as
he claimed to be, M. Pantaloon was disposed to be civil.
     "I am very grateful to you for the warning, sir... " he was beginning.
     "Act upon it, my friend. The gardes-champetres of M. d'Azyr have orders
to fire on trespassers. Imitate me, and decamp."
     They followed him upon the instant through that gap in the hedge to the
encampment on the common.  There Andre-Louis took his leave  of them. But as
he  was turning away he perceived a young man of the company  performing his
morning toilet at a bucket placed upon one of the wooden steps  at the  tail
of the house on wheels. A moment he hesitated, then he turned frankly to  M.
Pantaloon, who was still at his elbow.
     "If  it   were  not  unconscionable  to  encroach  so  far   upon  your
hospitality,  monsieur,"  said he, "I would  beg leave  to imitate that very
excellent young gentleman before I leave you."
     "But, my dear sir!" Good-nature oozed out of every pore of the fat body
of  the  master player.  "It is nothing at all. But, by all means. Rhodomont
will  provide what you require. He is the dandy of the company in real life,
though a fire-eater on the stage. Hi, Rhodomont!"
     The young ablutionist straightened his long body from  the  right angle
in which it had been bent over the bucket,  and looked out through a foam of
soapsuds. Pantaloon issued an order, and Rhodomont, who was indeed as gentle
and amiable off  the stage as he was formidable and  terrible  upon it, made
the stranger free of the bucket in the friendliest manner.
     So Andre-Louis once more removed his neckcloth and his coat, and rolled
up the  sleeves of his fine  shirt,  whilst Rhodomont procured him  soap,  a
towel, and presently  a broken comb, and even a greasy hair-ribbon,  in case
the gentleman should have  lost his own. This last Andre-Louis declined, but
the comb  he gratefully accepted, and having presently washed himself clean,
stood, with the towel flung over his  left shoulder, restoring  order to his
dishevelled locks before a broken piece of mirror affixed to the door of the
travelling house.
     He was standing thus,  what time the gentle Rhodomont babbled aimlessly
at  his side when  his ears caught the sound of hooves. He  looked over  his
shoulder carelessly, and  then stood frozen, with uplifted comb and loosened
mouth.  Away  across the common, on the  road that  bordered it, he beheld a
party  of  seven  horsemen  in  the  blue coats  with  red  facings  of  the
marechaussee.
     Not  for a  moment did  he  doubt what was  the quarry of this prowling
gendarmerie.  It was as  if  the  chill  shadow  of the gallows  had  fallen
suddenly upon him.
     And then the troop halted, abreast with them, and the sergeant  leading
it sent his bawling voice across the common.
     "Hi, there! Hi!" His tone rang with menace.
     Every member of the company - and there were some twelve in all
     -  stood at  gaze. Pantaloon advanced a step or two, stalking, his head
thrown back, his manner that of a King's Lieutenant.
     "Now, what the devil's this?" quoth he,  but whether of  Fate or Heaven
or the sergeant, was not clear.
     There  was a brief colloquy among the horsemen, then they came trotting
across the common straight towards the players' encampment.
     Andre-Louis had remained standing at the tail of the travelling  house.
He was still passing the  comb through his straggling hair, but mechanically
and  unconsciously.  His  mind was all  intent upon the advancing troop, his
wits alert and gathered together for a leap  in whatever direction should be
indicated.
     Still  in the distance, but evidently impatient,  the sergeant bawled a
question.
     "Who gave you leave to encamp here?"
     It was  a  question that  reassured Andre-Louis not at all.  He was not
deceived by it into supposing or even hoping that the  business of these men
was merely to round up vagrants and trespassers.  That was no part of  their
real duty; it was something done in passing
     - done, perhaps, in the hope of levying a tax of their own. It was very
long odds  that they were from Rennes, and that their  real business was the
hunting down of a  young  lawyer charged  with sedition. Meanwhile Pantaloon
was shouting back.
     "Who gave us leave, do you say? What leave? This is communal land, free
to all."
     The sergeant laughed unpleasantly, and came on, his troop following.
     "There  is,"  said  a  voice  at  Pantaloon's  elbow, "no such thing as
communal land in the proper sense in all M. de La Tour d'Azyr's vast domain.
This is a terre censive, and his bailiffs collect his dues from all who send
their beasts to graze here."
     Pantaloon   turned  to   behold   at   his  side   Andre-Louis  in  his
shirt-sleeves,  and without a  neckcloth, the towel still trailing over  his
left shoulder, a comb in his hand, his hair half dressed.
     "God of God!" swore Pantaloon. "But  it is an ogre, this  Marquis de La
Tour d'Azyr!"
     "I have told you  already what I think of  him," said Andre-Louis.  "As
for these fellows you had better let me deal with them. I have experience of
their  kind."  And  without  waiting for  Pantaloon's  consent,  Andre-Louis
stepped  forward  to  meet  the advancing  men  of the marechaussee.  He had
realized that here boldness alone could save him.
     When a moment  later the sergeant pulled up his horse alongside of this
half-dressed  young man, Andre-Louis combed his hair what time he looked  up
with a half smile, intended to be friendly, ingenuous, and disarming.
     In spite of it the  sergeant hailed him gruffly: "Are you the leader of
this troop of vagabonds?"
     "Yes... that is to say, my father, there, is really the leader." And he
jerked a thumb  in the  direction of M. Pantaloon,  who stood at gaze out of
earshot in the background. "What is your pleasure, captain?"
     "My  pleasure is to  tell you that you are very likely to be gaoled for
this,  all the pack of  you."  His  voice was  loud and bullying. It carried
across  the common to the ears of every  member of the  company, and brought
them  all  to  stricken  attention where  they stood. The  lot  of strolling
players was hard enough without the addition of gaolings.
     "But how so, my captain? This is communal land free to all."
     "It is nothing of the kind."
     "Where are the fences?" quoth  Andre-Louis,  waving the hand that  held
the comb, as if to indicate the openness of the place.
     "Fences!" snorted the  sergeant.  "What have  fences  to  do  with  the
matter? This is terre censive. There is no grazing here  save by payment  of
dues to the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr."
     "But we are not grazing," quoth the innocent Andre-Louis.
     "To the devil  with you, zany! You are not grazing! But your beasts are
grazing!"
     "They  eat so  little," Andre-Louis apologized,  and  again essayed his
ingratiating smile.
     The sergeant  grew more terrible than ever. "That is not the point. The
point  is  that you are committing  what amounts to a theft, and there's the
gaol for thieves."
     "Technically, I suppose you are right," sighed Andre-Louis, and fell to
combing his hair again, still looking up into the sergeant's face.  "But  we
have sinned in ignorance. We are grateful to you for the warning." He passed
the  comb into his left hand,  and  with his right fumbled in his  breeches'
pocket, whence there came a faint jingle of coins. "We are desolated to have
brought you out of your way. Perhaps for their trouble your men would honour
us  by stopping  at the next inn to drink the health of... of  this M. de La
Tour d' Azyr, or any other health that they think proper.
     Some of the clouds lifted from the sergeant's brow. But not yet all.
     "Well, well," said he, gruffly. "But you must decamp, you  understand."
He  leaned from the saddle  to bring  his  recipient hand  to  a  convenient
distance. Andre-Louis placed in it a three-livre piece.
     "In half an hour," said Andre-Louis.
     "Why in half an hour? Why not at once?"
     "Oh, but time to break our fast."
     They looked at each other. The sergeant next considered the broad piece
of  silver in  his  palm.  Then  at last  his  features  relaxed from  their
sternness.
     "After all," said he, "it is none of our business to play the tipstaves
for  M.  de  La  Tour  d'Azyr.  We are  of  the  marechaussee from  Rennes."
Andre-Louis' eyelids played him false by  flickering.  "But  if  you linger,
look out for the  gardes-champetres  of the Marquis. You'll find them not at
all accommodating. Well, well
     - a good appetite to you, monsieur," said he, in valediction.
     "A pleasant ride, my captain," answered Andre-Louis.
     The sergeant wheeled his horse about, his  troop wheeled with him. They
were starting off, when he reined up again.
     "You, monsieur!" he  called over his shoulder.  In  a bound Andre-Louis
was beside his  stirrup. "We  are  in quest of a scoundrel named Andre-Louis
Moreau, from Gavrillac,  a fugitive from justice wanted for the gallows on a
matter of sedition. You've seen nothing, I suppose, of a man whose movements
seemed to you suspicious?"
     "Indeed,  we have,"  said Andre-Louis, very boldly, his face eager with
consciousness of the ability to oblige.
     "You have?" cried the sergeant, in a ringing voice. "Where? When?"
     "Yesterday evening in the neighbourhood of Guignen... "
     "Yes, yes," the sergeant felt himself hot upon the trail.
     "There was  a fellow  who seemed very fearful of being recognized ... a
man of fifty or thereabouts... "
     "Fifty!" cried the sergeant, and his face fell. "Bah! This man of  ours
is no  older than yourself, a thin wisp of a fellow of about your own height
and of black hair, just like your own, by the description. Keep a lookout on
your  travels,  master player. The King's Lieutenant in Rennes has  sent  us
word  this morning that he will pay ten louis to any one  giving information
that  will  lead to  this scoundrel's arrest. So  there  's ten louis  to be
earned by keeping your eyes open, and sending  word to the nearest justices.
It would be a fine windfall for you, that."
     "A fine windfall, indeed, captain," answered Andre-Louis, laughing.
     But the sergeant had  touched his horse with the  spur, and was already
trotting off in the wake of his men. Andre-Louis continued to  laugh,  quite
silently, as he sometimes did when the humour of a jest was peculiarly keen.
     Then  he turned slowly about,  and came  back towards Pantaloon and the
rest of the company, who were now all grouped together, at gaze.
     Pantaloon advanced to meet him with both  hands out-held. For a  moment
Andre-Louis thought he was about to be embraced.
     "We hail you our saviour!" the  big  man declaimed. "Already the shadow
of the gaol was creeping over us, chilling us to the very marrow. For though
we be poor, yet  are we all  honest folk and not one of us has ever suffered
the indignity of  prison. Nor is  there one of us would  survive it. But for
you, my friend, it might have happened. What magic did you work?"
     "The  magic that is to be worked in France with  a King's portrait. The
French  are a very loyal nation, as you will have observed.  They love their
King  - and his  portrait even better  than himself, especially  when it  is
wrought in gold. But even in  silver  it  is respected. The sergeant was  so
overcome by the sight of that noble visage - on a  three-livre  piece - that
his anger vanished, and he has gone his ways leaving us to depart in peace."
     "Ah, true! He said we must decamp. About it, my lads! Come, come... "
     "But not  until after  breakfast," said Andre-Louis.  "A half-hour  for
breakfast  was conceded us by that loyal  fellow, so deeply was  he touched.
True,  he spoke of possible gardes-champetres. But he knows as well as I  do
that they are not  seriously to be feared, and that if  they came, again the
King's  portrait  -  wrought in  copper this  time -  would produce the same
melting effect upon them. So, my dear M. Pantaloon, break your fast at  your
ease. I  can smell your cooking from  here,  and from the smell I argue that
there is no need to wish you a good appetite."
     "My  friend, my saviour!" Pantaloon flung  a  great arm about the young
man's shoulders. "You shall stay to breakfast with us."
     "I confess to a hope that you would ask me," said Andre-Louis.

        CHAPTER II. THE SERVICE OF THESPISI


     They were, thought Andre-Louis, as he sat  down to  breakfast with them
behind the itinerant house, in the bright sunshine  that tempered  the  cold
breath of that  November morning, an  odd and yet an attractive crew. An air
of gaiety pervaded them. They affected to have no cares, and made merry over
the trials and tribulations of their nomadic life. They were curiously,  yet
amiably, artificial;  histrionic in  their  manner  of discharging  the most
commonplace  of  functions;  exaggerated  in  their  gestures;  stilted  and
affected in their speech. They seemed, indeed, to belong to a world apart, a
world of unreality  which became real  only on the planks of their stage, in
the glare of  their footlights. Good-fellowship bound them  one to  another;
and Andre-Louis reflected cynically that this harmony amongst them might  be
the cause  of their  apparent unreality.  In the real world, greedy striving
and  the  emulation of  acquisitiveness  preclude such  amity as was present
here.
     They  numbered  exactly  eleven,  three women and  eight men; and  they
addressed each other by their stage names: names which denoted their several
types, and never - or only very slightly - varied,  no matter what  might be
the play that they performed.
     "We are,"  Pantaloon informed him, "one of those few  remaining staunch
bands of real players, who uphold the traditions of the old Italian Commedia
dell'  Arte.  Not for  us to vex our memories and stultify our wit  with the
stilted phrases that are the fruit of a wretched author's lucubrations. Each
of us is in  detail his own author in  a  measure  as he develops  the  part
assigned to him.  We  are  improvisers - improvisers  of  the old and  noble
Italian school."
     "I had guessed  as  much,"  said  Andre-Louis, "when I  discovered  you
rehearsing your improvisations."
     Pantaloon frowned.
     "I  have observed, young sir, that your humour inclines to the pungent,
not to  say  the acrid.  It is very well. It is I suppose,  the  humour that
should go  with such a countenance. But it may lead you astray, as  in  this
instance.  That rehearsal - a most unusual  thing with us - was necessitated
by the histrionic rawness of  our Leandre. We  are seeking to inculcate into
him by training an art with which Nature neglected  to endow him against his
present  needs.  Should  he  continue  to  fail  in  doing  justice  to  our
schooling... But we will not disturb our present harmony with the unpleasant
anticipation  of misfortunes which  we  still  hope  to avert.  We love  our
Leandre, for all his faults. Let me make you acquainted with our company.
     And he proceeded to introduction in detail. He pointed out the long and
amiable Rhodomont, whom Andre-Louis already knew.
     "His length of limb and hooked nose were his superficial qualifications
to  play roaring  captains," Pantaloon explained. "His lungs  have justified
our choice.  You should  hear him  roar. At first we  called him Spavento or
Epouvapte. But that was unworthy of so great an artist. Not since the superb
Mondor amazed the world has so thrasonical a bully been seen upon the stage.
So we conferred upon him the name of Rhodomont  that Mondor made famous; and
I  give  you my word, as  an  actor and a gentleman -  for I am a gentleman,
monsieur, or was - that he has justified us."
     His little eyes beamed in his great swollen  face as  he  turned  their
gaze upon the object of his encomium. The terrible Rhodomont, confused by so
much praise,  blushed  like  a  schoolgirl as  he met the solemn scrutiny of
Andre-Louis.
     "Then here we have Scaramouche,  whom also you  already know. Sometimes
he is  Scapin  and sometimes Coviello, but in the main Scaramouche, to which
let me tell you he is best suited - sometimes  too well suited, I think. For
he is Scaramouche not only on  the  stage, but also  in the world. He has  a
gift of sly  intrigue,  an art of setting folk by the ears, combined with an
impudent aggressiveness  upon occasion when he considers himself  safe  from
reprisals. He is  Scaramouche,  the little skirmisher, to  the  very life. I
could  say  more. But  I am by  disposition  charitable  and  loving to  all
mankind."
     "As  the  priest  said  when  he  kissed  the  serving-wench,"  snarled
Scaramouche, and went on eating.
     "His  humour,  like  your  own,  you  will  observe,  is  acrid,"  said
Pantaloon.  He  passed  on. "Then that rascal  with the  lumpy nose  and the
grinning  bucolic countenance is,  of  course, Pierrot. Could  he  be  aught
else?"
     "I could play lovers a deal better," said the rustic cherub.
     "That   is   the   delusion   proper  to   Pierrot,"   said  Pantaloon,
contemptuously. "This  heavy,  beetle-browed ruffian, who  has grown  old in
sin, and whose appetite increases with his years, is Polichinelle. Each one,
as you perceive,  is designed by Nature  for the part he plays. This nimble,
freckled  jackanapes is  Harlequin; not  your  spangled Harlequin into which
modern degeneracy  has  debased that first-born of  Momus, but  the  genuine
original zany of the  Commedia, ragged and  patched, an  impudent, cowardly,
blackguardly clown."
     "Each one of us, as you perceive," said Harlequin, mimicking the leader
of the troupe, "is designed by Nature for the part he plays."
     "Physically,  my friend, physically  only,  else we should not have  so
much trouble in teaching this beautiful Leandre to become  a lover. Then  we
have Pasquariel  here,  who is sometimes an  apothecary, sometimes a notary,
sometimes  a  lackey  - an  amiable, accommodating  fellow. He  is  also  an
excellent cook, being a child  of Italy, that land of gluttons. And finally,
you have  myself, who as the father of the  company  very  properly play  as
Pantaloon the roles  of  father.  Sometimes,  it is  true,  I  am a  deluded
husband, and sometimes an ignorant, self-sufficient doctor. But it is rarely
that I find it necessary  to call myself other than Pantaloon. For the rest,
I am the only one who has a name - a real name. It is Binet, monsieur.
     "And  now for the ladies...  First in order of seniority we have Madame
there." He waved one of  his great hands towards  a buxom, smiling blonde of
five-and-forty, who was seated on the lowest of the steps  of the travelling
house. "She is our Duegne, or Mother, or Nurse, as the case requires. She is
known quite  simply and royally  as  Madame. If she ever had  a name in  the
world, she has  long  since forgotten it,  which is perhaps as well. Then we
have  this pert jade with the tip-tilted nose and the wide mouth,  who is of
course  our  soubrette  Columbine,  and  lastly,  my  daughter  Climene,  an
amoureuse of talents not to  be matched  outside the  Comedie Francaise,  of
which she has the bad taste to aspire to become a member."
     The lovely Climene  - and lovely indeed she  was - tossed her nut-brown
curls  and  laughed  as she  looked across at Andre-Louis. Her eyes,  he had
perceived by now, were not blue, but hazel.
     "Do  not believe  him, monsieur. Here  I am queen,  and I prefer to  be
queen here rather than a slave in Paris."
     "Mademoiselle,"  said  Andre-Louis,  quite  solemnly,  "will  be  queen
wherever she condescends to reign."
     Her  only answer was a timid -  timid  and yet alluring  -  glance from
under fluttering lids. Meanwhile her father was  bawling at the comely young
man who played lovers - "You hear,  Leandre! That is  the sort of speech you
should practise."
     Leandre raised languid  eyebrows. "That?"  quoth he, and shrugged. "The
merest commonplace."
     Andre-Louis laughed approval. "M. Leandre  is of a readier wit than you
concede.  There is subtlety in  pronouncing  it a commonplace to call  Mlle.
Climene a queen.
     Some laughed, M. Binet amongst them, with good-humoured mockery.
     "You think he  has the wit to mean it thus? Bah! His subtleties are all
unconscious."
     The  conversation  becoming general, Andre-Louis  soon learnt what  yet
there  was  to  learn  of  this strolling band.  They were  on their way  to
Guichen, where they hoped to prosper at  the fair that was to open on Monday
next. They  would  make their triumphal  entry into the town  at  noon,  and
setting  up  their stage  in  the old market,  they would  give their  first
performance that same Saturday night, in a new canevas - or scenario - of M.
Binet's own, which should set the  rustics gaping. And then M. Binet fetched
a  sigh,  and  addressed  himself  to  the elderly,  swarthy,  beetle-browed
Polichinelle, who sat on his left.
     "But  we shall miss  Felicien," said he. "Indeed, I do not know what we
shall do without him."
     "Oh, we shall contrive," said Polichinelle, with his mouth full.
     "So you  always  say, whatever happens,  knowing that in  any  case the
contriving will not fall upon yourself."
     "He should not be difficult to replace," said Harlequin.
     "True, if  we were in a civilized land.  But where among the rustics of
Brittany are we to find a fellow of even his poor parts?" M. Binet turned to
Andre-Louis.  "He was our property-man,  our machinist, our stage-carpenter,
our man of affairs, and occasionally he acted."
     "The part of Figaro, I  presume,"  said  Andre-Louis, which elicited  a
laugh.
     "So you  are acquainted  with Beaumarchais!"  Binet eyed the  young man
with fresh interest.
     "He is tolerably well known, I think."
     "In Paris, to  be sure. But I had not dreamt his  fame  had reached the
wilds of Brittany."
     "But then  I was some years in Paris - at  the Lycee of Louis le Grand.
It was there I made acquaintance with his work."
     "A dangerous man," said Polichinelle, sententiously.
     "Indeed, and you are right,"  Pantaloon agreed. "Clever - I do not deny
him that,  although myself I  find little use for authors. But of a sinister
cleverness responsible for the dissemination of many of these subversive new
ideas. I think such writers should be suppressed."
     "M. de La Tour d'Azyr would probably agree with you - the gentleman who
by  the simple exertion of his  will turns this communal  land into his  own
property." And Andre-Louis drained his cup, which had been filled  with  the
poor vin gris that was the players' drink.
     It was  a  remark that might  have precipitated an argument  had it not
also reminded M. Binet  of the terms on which they were encamped there,  and
of the fact that the half-hour was more than past. In a moment he was on his
feet, leaping up  with an  agility surprising in so corpulent a man, issuing
his commands like a marshal on a field of battle.
     "Come, come, my lads! Are we to sit  guzzling here all day? Time flees,
and  there's a deal  to be done if we  are to make our entry into Guichen at
noon. Go, get you dressed. We strike camp in twenty minutes. Bestir, ladies!
To your chaise, and see that you contrive to look your  best. Soon  the eyes
of Guichen will be  upon you, and the condition of your  interior  to-morrow
will depend upon the impression made by your exterior to-day. Away! Away!"
     The implicit  obedience this  autocrat  commanded set them  in a whirl.
Baskets and  boxes were dragged forth to receive the platters and remains of
their meagre  feast.  In an instant the  ground was  cleared, and the  three
ladies  had taken  their departure to the chaise, which  was  set apart  for
their use.  The men were already  climbing  into the  house on  wheels, when
Binet turned to Andre-Louis.
     "We  part  here,  sir,"  said  he, dramatically,  "the  richer  by your
acquaintance; your debtors and your friends." He put forth his podgy hand.
     Slowly Andre-Louis took it  in his own. He had been thinking swiftly in
the last  few  moments. And remembering  the safety  he  had found  from his
pursuers in the bosom of this company, it occurred to him hat nowhere  could
he be better  hidden for the  present, until the  quest for him  should have
died down.
     "Sir," he  said, "the indebtedness is on my  side.  It is not every day
one  has  the  felicity to  sit down  with  so  illustrious and  engaging  a
company."
     Binet's little eyes peered suspiciously at the young man, in  quest  of
irony. He found nothing but candour and simple good faith.
     "I  part  from  you  reluctantly,"  Andre-Louis  continued.  "The  more
reluctantly since I do not perceive the absolute necessity for parting."
     "How?" quoth Binet, frowning, and slowly withdrawing the hand which the
other had already retained rather longer than was necessary.
     "Thus," Andre-Louis explained himself. "You may set me  down as a  sort
of knight of rueful countenance in quest of adventure, with no fixed purpose
in life at present. You will not marvel  that  what  I have seen of yourself
and  your  distinguished troupe  should  inspire  me  to  desire your better
acquaintance. On  your side you tell me that you are  in need of some one to
replace your Figaro  - your Felicien, I think  you called him. Whilst it may
be presumptuous of me to hope that I could discharge an office so varied and
so onerous... "
     "You are indulging that acrid humour  of yours again, my friend," Binet
interrupted him. "Excepting for  that," he  added, slowly, meditatively, his
little eyes screwed up, "we  might discuss this proposal that you seem to be
making."
     "Alas! we can except nothing. If you take me, you take me as I am. What
else is possible? As for this humour - such  as it is - which you decry, you
might turn it to profitable account."
     "How so?"
     "In several ways. I might, for instance, teach Leandre to make love."
     Pantaloon burst into laughter.  "You do  not  lack confidence  in  your
powers. Modesty does not afflict you."
     "Therefore I evince the first quality necessary in an actor."
     "Can you act?"
     "Upon  occasion,  I think," said  Andre-Louis,  his  thoughts upon  his
performance at Rennes and Nantes,  and wondering  when in all his histrionic
career Pantaloon's improvisations had so rent the heart of mobs.
     M. Binet was musing. "Do you know much of the theatre?" quoth he.
     "Everything," said Andre-Louis.
     "I said that modesty will prove no obstacle in your career."
     "But consider. I  know  the  work of Beaumarchais,  Eglantine, Mercier,
Chenier, and many others of our contemporaries. Then I have read, of course,
Moliere, Racine, Corneille, besides many other lesser French
     writers.  Of foreign  authors,  I am intimate  with the works of Gozzi,
Goldoni, Guarini, Bibbiena, Machiavelli, Secchi, Tasso, Ariosto, and Fedini.
Whilst  of  those  of  antiquity I  know  most of  the  work  of  Euripides,
Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus... "
     "Enough!" roared Pantaloon.
     "I am not nearly through with my list," said Andre-Louis.
     "You may keep the rest for another day. In Heaven's name, what can have
induced you to read so many dramatic authors?"
     "In my humble  way I am a student of m