an, and some years ago I made the
discovery that he is most intimately to be studied in the reflections of him
provided for the theatre."
     "That is a very original and profound discovery," said Pantaloon, quite
seriously. "It had never occurred to me. Yet  is it true. Sir, it is a truth
that dignifies our art. You are a man of parts, that is clear  to me. It has
been clear since first I met you.  I  can  read a man. I  knew  you from the
moment that you said 'good-morning.'  Tell me, now:  Do you  think you could
assist me  upon occasion in the preparation  of a  scenario? My  mind, fully
engaged  as it is with a thousand details  of organization, is not always as
clear as I would  have it for such work.  Could  you assist me there, do you
think?"
     "I am quite sure I could."
     "Hum,  yes.  I  was  sure you  would  be.  The other duties  that  were
Felicien's  you would  soon learn. Well, well, if you are willing,  you  may
come along with us. You'd want some salary, I suppose?"
     "If it is usual," said Andre-Louis.
     "What should you say to ten livres a month?"
     "I should say that it isn't exactly the riches of Peru."
     "I might go as far as fifteen," said Binet, reluctantly. "But times are
bad."
     "I'll make them better for you."
     "I've no doubt you believe it. Then we understand each other?"
     "Perfectly," said Andre-Louis, dryly,  and  was thus committed  to  the
service of Thespis.

        CHAPTER III. THE COMIC MUSEI


     The  company's  entrance into the township of Guichen,  if not  exactly
triumphal, as Binet had expressed the desire that it should be, was at least
sufficiently startling  and  cacophonous to  set the rustics gaping. To them
these fantastic  creatures appeared - as indeed  they  were  -  beings  from
another world.
     First went  the great travelling  chaise, creaking and  groaning on its
way, drawn by two of the Flemish horses. It  was Pantaloon  who drove it, an
obese and massive  Pantaloon in a tight-fitting suit of scarlet under a long
brown bed-gown, his countenance adorned by a colossal cardboard nose. Beside
him on the  box sat Pierrot  in a white smock, with sleeves  that completely
covered  his hands,  loose  white trousers,  and a black  skull-cap. He  had
whitened his face with flour, and he made hideous noises with a trumpet.
     On the  roof  of the  coach  were assembled  Polichinelle, Scaramouche,
Harlequin, and Pasquariel. Polichinelle in black and white,  his doublet cut
in the fashion of a century ago, with humps before and behind, a white frill
round  his neck and a black mask upon the  upper half of his face,  stood in
the middle, his feet planted  wide to  steady  him, solemnly  and  viciously
banging a big  drum. The other three were seated each at  one of the corners
of  the roof, their legs dangling over.  Scaramouche,  all in black  in  the
Spanish fashion of the seventeenth century, his face adorned with  a pair of
mostachios, jangled a  guitar discordantly. Harlequin, ragged and patched in
every colour of the rainbow, with his leather girdle and sword of lath,  the
upper  half of  his  face  smeared  in  soot,  clashed  a  pair  of  cymbals
intermittently. Pasquariel,  as an apothecary  in skull-cap and white apron,
excited the hilarity of the onlookers  by  his  enormous  tin clyster, which
emitted when pumped a dolorous squeak.
     Within the chaise itself, but showing themselves freely at the windows,
and  exchanging  quips  with the townsfolk,  sat the  three  ladies  of  the
company. Climene, the  amoureuse, beautifully gowned in  flowered satin, her
own clustering ringlets concealed under a pumpkin-shaped wig, looked so much
the lady of fashion  that you might have wondered what she  was dong in that
fantastic  rabble.  Madame,  as the mother, was also dressed with splendour,
but exaggerated  to  achieve  the ridiculous. Her headdress was  a monstrous
structure  adorned with flowers, and  superimposed by little ostrich plumes.
Columbine sat facing  them, her  back  to  the horses,  falsely  demure,  in
milkmaid bonnet of white muslin, and a striped gown of green and blue.
     The marvel was that the old chaise, which in its halcyon days  may have
served to carry some dignitary  of the Church,  did not  founder instead  of
merely groaning under that excessive and ribald load.
     Next came the house on wheels, led by the long, lean Rhodomont, who had
daubed his face red, and increased the terror of it by a  pair of formidable
mostachios.  He  was  in long  thigh-boots and  leather jerkin,  trailing an
enormous sword from  a  crimson baldrick. He wore a  broad felt hat  with  a
draggled  feather,  and  as he advanced he raised his great voice and roared
out  defiance,  and  threats of blood-curdling butchery to be performed upon
all  and  sundry. On  the roof of this  vehicle sat Leandre alone. He was in
blue satin, with ruffles, small sword, powdered hair, patches and spy-glass,
and red-heeled shoes:  the  complete  courtier,  looking very handsome.  The
women of  Guichen  ogled him coquettishly. He  took the  ogling as  a proper
tribute to his  personal  endowments,  and returned  it with interest.  Like
Climene, he looked out of place amid the bandits  who composed the remainder
of the company.
     Bringing  up the  rear  came Andre-Louis leading  the two donkeys  that
dragged the property-cart.  He  had insisted  upon  assuming a  false  nose,
representing as for  embellishment that which he intended for  disguise. For
the rest, he had retained his own garments. No one paid any attention to him
as he trudged along beside  his donkeys,  an insignificant rear guard, which
he was well content to be.
     They made the tour of the town, in which the activity was already above
the normal in  preparation  for next  week's fair. At intervals they halted,
the cacophony would cease abruptly, and  Polichinelle  would  announce  in a
stentorian voice that  at five o'clock that evening in  the  old  market, M.
Binet's famous company of  improvisers  would perform  a new comedy  in four
acts entitled, "The Heartless Father."
     Thus at last they came to the old market, which was the  groundfloor of
the town hall, and open to the  four  winds by  two archways on each side of
its length,  and one archway  on  each side of its breadth. These  archways,
with  two  exceptions,  had  been boarded up. Through  those two, which gave
admission to  what presently would be  the theatre,  the ragamuffins of  the
town,  and the niggards who  were reluctant to  spend  the necessary sous to
obtain proper admission, might catch furtive glimpses of the performance.
     That  afternoon   was  the   most  strenuous   of   Andre-Louis'  life,
unaccustomed as he  was to any  sort  of  manual  labour.  It  was spent  in
erecting and preparing the stage at one end of the market-hall; and he began
to realize  how hard-earned were to be his monthly fifteen livres.  At first
there  were four of them to the task - or really three, for Pantaloon did no
more than bawl  directions. Stripped of  their finery, Rhodomont and Leandre
assisted Andre-Louis in that carpentering. Meanwhile the other  four were at
dinner with the  ladies. When a half-hour or so later  they came to carry on
the work, Andre-Louis and his companions went to dine in their turn, leaving
Polichinelle to direct the operations as well as assist in them.
     They crossed the square to the cheap little inn where they had taken up
their quarters. In the  narrow passage Andre-Louis  came face to  face  with
Climene,  her  fine feathers  cast,  and  restored  by  now  to  her  normal
appearance
     "And how do you like it?" she asked him, pertly.
     He looked  her in the eyes. "It has  its compensations,"  quoth he,  in
that curious  cold tone of his that left one wondering  whether he  meant or
not what he seemed to mean.
     She  knit  her  brows.  "You...  you  feel  the need  of  compensations
already?"
     "Faith, I felt it from the beginning," said he. "It was  the perception
of them allured me."
     They were  quite  alone, the others having gone  on  into the room  set
apart for  them, where food was spread. Andre-Louis, who was as unlearned in
Woman  as he was learned  in Man,  was  not  to  know, upon  feeling himself
suddenly  extraordinarily  aware  of her  femininity, that it was she who in
some subtle, imperceptible manner so rendered him.
     "What,"   she   asked  him,   with   demurest  innocence,   "are  these
compensations?"
     He caught himself upon the brink of the abyss.
     "Fifteen livres a month," said he, abruptly.
     A moment she stared at him bewildered. He was very  disconcerting. Then
she recovered.
     "Oh, and  bed  and board,"  said she.  "Don't be leaving  that from the
reckoning,  as you  seem to be doing; for  your  dinner will  be going cold.
Aren't you coming?"
     "Haven't you dined?" he cried, and  she wondered had she  caught a note
of eagerness.
     "No," she answered, over her shoulder. "I waited."
     "What for?" quoth his innocence, hopefully.
     "I had  to  change,  of  course, zany,"  she answered,  rudely.  Having
dragged  him, as she imagined, to the chopping-block, she could not  refrain
from chopping. But then he was of those who must be chopping back.
     "And you  left  your manners upstairs  with  your  grand-lady  clothes,
mademoiselle. I understand."
     A  scarlet flame  suffused her face. "You are very insolent," she said,
lamely.
     "I've often been told so. But I  don't believe it."  He thrust open the
door for her, and bowing with an air which imposed upon her, although it was
merely  copied from Fleury of the Comedie Francaise, so often visited in the
Louis  le  Grand days,  he  waved her in.  "After you,  ma  demoiselle." For
greater  emphasis he deliberately broke  the  word  into  its two  component
parts.
     "I  thank you,  monsieur," she  answered, frostily, as near sneering as
was  possible  to so charming a person, and went in, nor addressed him again
throughout  the  meal.  Instead,  she  devoted  herself with an  unusual and
devastating  assiduity to the  suspiring Leandre, that  poor devil who could
not successfully play the lover with her on the stage because of his longing
to play it in reality.
     Andre-Louis ate  his  herrings and black  bread  with  a  good appetite
nevertheless. It  was  poor fare, but then poor fare  was the  common lot of
poor people  in  that winter  of  starvation, and since he had cast  in  his
fortunes with a company whose  affairs  were not flourishing, he must accept
the evils of the situation philosophically.
     "Have you  a name?"  Binet asked him once in the course of that  repast
and during a pause in the conversation.
     "It happens that I have," said he. "I think it is Parvissimus.
     "Parvissimus?" quoth Binet. "Is that a family name?"
     "In  such a company, where  only the leader enjoys  the privilege of  a
family name, the like would  be unbecoming its least  member. So I  take the
name that best becomes in me. And I think it is Parvissimus
     - the very least."
     Binet  was amused. It  was  droll; it showed a  ready fancy. Oh,  to be
sure, they must get to work together on those scenarios.
     "I shall prefer it to carpentering,"  said Andre-Louis. Nevertheless he
had to  go  back to it that afternoon,  and to labour strenuously until four
o'clock, when at last the autocratic Binet announced himself satisfied  with
the  preparations,  and proceeded, again  with the help  of Andre-Louis,  to
prepare the lights, which were supplied partly by tallow  candles and partly
by lamps burning fish-oil.
     At  five o'clock that evening  the three knocks  were  sounded, and the
curtain rose on "The Heartless Father."
     Among the  duties inherited  by Andre-Louis from  the departed Felicien
whom he replaced, was that of doorkeeper. This duty he discharged dressed in
a Polichinelle costume, and wearing a pasteboard nose. It was an arrangement
mutually  agreeable to M. Binet  and himself. M. Binet - who  had  taken the
further  precaution of  retaining Andre-Louis' own garments  -  was  thereby
protected  against the  risk  of his  latest  recruit  absconding  with  the
takings.  Andre-Louis, without  illusions  on  the score of Pantaloon's real
object, agreed  to it  willingly enough,  since it protected  him  from  the
chance of recognition by any acquaintance who might possibly be in Guichen.
     The performance was  in every sense unexciting; the audience meagre and
unenthusiastic.  The  benches  provided  in  the  front  half  of the market
contained some  twenty-seven  persons:  eleven  at twenty  sous  a  head and
sixteen at twelve. Behind these stood a rabble of some thirty others  at six
sous  apiece.  Thus the  gross takings  were two louis, ten livres, and  two
sous. By the time M. Binet had  paid for the use of the  market, his lights,
and the expenses of his company at the inn over Sunday, there was not likely
to be very much left towards the wages of his players. It is not surprising,
therefore, that M.  Binet's bonhomie should have been a trifle overcast that
evening.
     "And  what  do  you think of it?"  he asked Andre-Louis,  as  they were
walking back to the inn after the performance.
     "Possibly it could have been worse; probably it could not," said he.
     In sheer amazement M. Binet  checked in his stride, and  turned to look
at his companion.
     "Huh!" said he. "Dieu de Dien! But you are frank."
     "An unpopular form of service among fools, I know."
     "Well, I am not a fool," said Binet.
     "That  is  why  I  am  frank.  I  pay  you the  compliment of  assuming
intelligence in you, M. Binet."
     "Oh, you  do?"  quoth  M. Binet. "And who the devil  are you to  assume
anything? Your assumptions are presumptuous, sir." And  with that he  lapsed
into silence and the gloomy business of mentally casting up his accounts.
     But at table over supper a half-hour later he revived the topic.
     "Our latest recruit, this excellent M. Parvissimus," he announced, "has
the impudence to tell me that possibly our comedy could have been worse, but
that probably  it  could  not."  And  he blew out his great  round cheeks to
invite a laugh at the expense of that foolish critic.
     "That's bad,"  said the swarthy and sardonic Polichinelle. He was grave
as Rhadamanthus pronouncing  judgment. "That's  bad. But what is  infinitely
worse is that the audience had the impudence to be of the same mind."
     "An  ignorant pack of  clods,"  sneered Leandre,  with  a toss  of  his
handsome head.
     "You are wrong," quoth Harlequin. "You were born for love, my dear, not
criticism."
     Leandre  -  a   dull   dog,  as  you   will  have  conceived  -  looked
contemptuously down  upon the little man. "And you, what were you born for?"
he wondered.
     "Nobody knows," was the candid  admission. "Nor yet why. It is the case
of many of us, my dear, believe me."
     "But why" - M. Binet took him  up,  and thus spoilt the beginnings of a
very pretty quarrel - "why do you say that Leandre is wrong?"
     "To be general, because he is always wrong. To be particular, because I
judge  the  audience of  Guichen to be too sophisticated for  'The Heartless
Father.'"
     "You  would put it more happily," interposed Andre-Louis - who  was the
cause of  this discussion - "if you said that 'The Heartless Father'  is too
unsophisticated for the audience of Guichen."
     "Why, what's the difference?" asked Leandre.
     "I didn't imply a difference. I merely suggested that it is  a  happier
way to express the fact."
     "The gentleman is being subtle," sneered Binet.
     "Why happier?" Harlequin demanded.
     "Because  it  is  easier  to   bring  'The  Heartless  Father'  to  the
sophistication  of the  Guichen  audience, than the Guichen audience to  the
unsophistication of 'The Heartless Father.'"
     "Let  me think it out,"  groaned Polichinelle, and  he took his head in
his hands.
     But from the tail  of the  table Andre-Louis  was challenged by Climene
who sat there between Columbine and Madame.
     "You would alter the comedy, would you, M. Parvissimus?" she cried.
     He turned to parry her malice.
     "I would suggest that it be altered," he corrected, inclining his head.
     "And how would you alter it, monsieur?"
     "I? Oh, for the better."
     "But of course!" She was sleekest sarcasm. "And how would you do it?"
     "Aye, tell us that," roared M. Binet, and added:  "Silence, I pray you,
gentlemen and ladies. Silence for M. Parvissimus."
     Andre-Louis looked from father to  daughter, and smiled.  "Pardi!" said
he. "I am between bludgeon and dagger. If I escape  with my life, I shall be
fortunate. Why,  then, since you pin me to the very wall, I'll tell you what
I should do. I  should go  back to the original and help myself more  freely
from it."
     "The original?" questioned M. Binet - the author.
     "It  is called, I believe, 'Monsieur de  Pourceaugnac,' and was written
by Moliere."
     Somebody tittered, but that  somebody  was  not M.  Binet. He had  been
touched on  the raw, and the look in his little eyes betrayed the fact  that
his bonhomme exterior covered anything but a bonhomme.
     "You charge me with plagiarism,"  he  said at last;  "with filching the
ideas of Moliere."
     "There  is  always,  of  course,"  said  Andre-Louis,  unruffled,  "the
alternative possibility of two great minds working upon parallel lines."
     M. Binet studied the young man attentively a moment. He found him bland
and inscrutable, and decided to pin him down.
     "Then you do not imply that I have been stealing from Moliere?"
     "I advise you to do so, monsieur," was the disconcerting reply.
     M. Binet was shocked.
     "You  advise  me  to do  so!  You advise me, me, Antoine Binet, to turn
thief at my age!"
     "He is outrageous," said mademoiselle, indignantly.
     "Outrageous is  the word.  I thank  you for it, my dear. I take you  on
trust, sir. You sit at my  table, you have the  honour to  be included in my
company, and to my face you have the audacity to advise me to become a thief
- the worst kind of thief that is conceivable, a thief of  spiritual things,
a  thief of ideas!  It is insufferable,  intolerable! I  have been,  I fear,
deeply mistaken in you,  monsieur; just as you  appear to have been mistaken
in me. I am not the scoundrel you suppose  me, sir, and I will not number in
my company a man who dares to suggest that I should become one. Outrageous!"
     He was very angry. His voice  boomed through the  little room,  and the
company sat hushed and something scared, their  eyes  upon  Andre-Louis, who
was the only one entirely unmoved by this outburst of virtuous indignation.
     "You realize, monsieur," he said, very quietly, "that you are insulting
the memory of the illustrious dead?"
     "Eh?" said Binet.
     Andre-Louis developed his sophistries.
     "You insult the  memory of Moliere, the greatest ornament of our stage,
one of the greatest ornaments of our nation, when you suggest that there  is
vileness in doing that which he never hesitated to do, which no great author
yet  has  hesitated  to  do.  You cannot  suppose that Moliere ever troubled
himself to be original in the matter of ideas. You  cannot suppose  that the
stories he tells in his plays have never been told before. They were culled,
as you very well  know - though you seem momentarily to  have  forgotten it,
and  it is therefore necessary that I should  remind you - they were culled,
many of  them,  from the Italian  authors, who  themselves  had  culled them
Heaven alone knows where. Moliere took those old stories  and retold them in
his own language. That is precisely what I am suggesting that you should do.
Your company is a company of improvisers.  You  supply  the  dialogue as you
proceed,  which is rather  more than Moliere ever attempted. You may, if you
prefer it
     - though it would seem to me to be yielding to an excess of scruple
     - go straight to  Boccaccio  or Sacchetti.  But even then you cannot be
sure that you have reached the sources."
     Andre-Louis  came off with flying  colours  after that. You see what  a
debater was lost in him; how nimble he was in  the art of making white  look
black. The company was impressed, and  no one more that M. Binet, who  found
himself supplied with a crushing argument against those who  in future might
tax  him with the impudent plagiarisms which he undoubtedly perpetrated.  He
retired in the best order he could from the position he had taken  up at the
outset.
     "So  that  you think," he  said, at the  end  of  a  long  outburst  of
agreement, "you think  that  our  story  of 'The Heartless Father'  could be
enriched by dipping into 'Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,' to which I confess upon
reflection that it may present certain superficial resemblances?"
     "I  do;  most  certainly  I  do  -  always  provided  that  you  do  so
judiciously. Times have changed since Moliere." It was as a  consequence  of
this  that Binet  retired soon after, taking  Andre-Louis with him. The pair
sat together late that night, and  were again in close communion  throughout
the whole of Sunday morning.
     After  dinner M. Binet read to  the  assembled company the amended  and
amplified  canevas  of "The Heartless Father," which, acting upon the advice
of M. Parvissimus, he had been at great pains to prepare.  The  company  had
few doubts as to the real authorship  before  he began to read; none  at all
when he had read. There was a verve, a grip about this story; and, what  was
more,  those  of  them  who  knew  their  Moliere  realized  that  far  from
approaching the original more closely,  this  canevas had drawn farther away
from  it.  Moliere's original part -  the  title role  -  had  dwindled into
insignificance, to the great disgust  of  Polichinelle, to whom it fell. But
the other parts had all been built up into importance, with the exception of
Leandre, who  remained as before. The two great roles were now  Scaramouche,
in the character  of the  intriguing Sbrigandini, and  Pantaloon the father.
There was, too,  a comical part for Rhodomont, as the roaring bully hired by
Polichinelle to cut  Leandre into ribbons. And in view of the importance now
of Scaramouche, the play had been rechristened "Figaro-Scaramouche."
     This last had not been without a deal of opposition  from M. Binet. But
his relentless collaborator, who was in reality the real author
     - drawing shamelessly, but practically at last upon his great  store of
reading - had overborne him.
     "You must move with the times, monsieur. In Paris  Beaumarchais is  the
rage. 'Figaro' is known  to-day throughout the world. Let us borrow a little
of  his  glory. It will  draw the  people in. They  will come to  see half a
'Figaro'  when  they  will  not come  to see  a  dozen  'Heartless Fathers.'
Therefore let us cast the mantle of Figaro upon some one, and proclaim it in
our title."
     "But as I am the head of the company... " began M. Binet, weakly.
     "If you will be blind to your interests, you  will presently be  a head
without a  body. And what use is that?  Can the shoulders of Pantaloon carry
the mantle of Figaro? You laugh. Of course you  laugh. The notion is absurd.
The proper person for the mantle of Figaro is  Scaramouche, who is naturally
Figaro's twin-brother."
     Thus tyrannized, the tyrant Binet gave way, comforted by the reflection
that  if he understood anything at all about the theatre, he had for fifteen
livres a month acquired  something  that would presently  be earning  him as
many louis.
     The company's reception of the canevas now  confirmed him, if we except
Polichinelle, who, annoyed at having lost half his part in  the alterations,
declared the new scenario fatuous.
     "Ah! You call my work fatuous, do you?" M. Binet hectored him.
     "Your work?" said Polichinelle, to  add  with his tongue in  his cheek:
"Ah, pardon. I had not realized that you were the author."
     "Then realize it now."
     "You were  very close with M. Parvissimus over  this  authorship," said
Polichinelle, with impudent suggestiveness.
     "And what if I was? What do you imply?"
     "That you took him to cut quills for you, of course."
     "I'll  cut  your  ears  for  you  if  you're  not  civil," stormed  the
infuriated Binet.
     Polichinelle got up slowly, and stretched himself.
     "Dieu de  Dieu!" said he.  "If  Pantaloon is to play Rhodomont, I think
I'll leave you. He is not amusing in the part." And he swaggered  out before
M. Binet had recovered from his speechlessness.

        CHAPTER IV. EXIT MONSIEUR PARVISSIMUSV

     Ar   four   o'clock   on   Monday  afternoon   the   curtain  rose   on
"Figaro-Scaramouche"  to  an  audience that filled  three  quarters  of  the
market-hall.  M.  Binet attributed this good  attendance  to  the influx  of
people to Guichen for the fair, and to the magnificent parade of his company
through  the  streets  of the  township  at  the  busiest time  of  the day.
Andre-Louis attributed it  entirely to the title. It  was the "Figaro" touch
that  had fetched in  the better-class bourgeoisie, which  filled  more than
half of the twenty-sous places and three quarters of  the twelve-sous seats.
The lure had drawn them. Whether it was  to continue to do  so  would depend
upon the manner in which the canevas over which he had laboured to the glory
of Binet was interpreted by the company. Of the merits of the canevas itself
he had no doubt.  The authors upon whom  he had drawn for the elements of it
were sound, and he had taken of their best, which he  claimed to  be no more
than the justice due to them.
     The company excelled itself. The audience followed with relish the  sly
intriguings  of  Scaramouche, delighted  in  the  beauty  and  freshness  of
Climene, was moved almost to tears by the hard fate which through four  long
acts kept  her from the hungering  arms of the  so beautiful Leandre, howled
its  delight  over  the  ignominy  of  Pantaloon, the  buffooneries  of  his
sprightly  lackey  Harlequin,  and  the  thrasonical   strut  and  bellowing
fierceness of the cowardly Rhodomont.
     The success  of the Binet troupe in Guichen was assured. That night the
company drank Burgundy at M. Binet's expense. The takings reached the sum of
eight louis, which was as good business as M. Binet had ever done in all his
career. He  was  very pleased.  Gratification rose like steam  from his  fat
body. He even condescended so far  as to attribute a share of the credit for
the success to M. Parvissimus.
     "His suggestion," he was careful to say, by way of  properly delimiting
that share, "was most valuable, as I perceived at the time."
     "And his  cutting of quills," growled Polichinelle. "Don't forget that.
It  is most  important  to  have by you  a man who understands how to  cut a
quill, as I shall remember when I turn author."
     But  not  even  that gibe could stir  M. Binet out  of  his lethargy of
content.
     On  Tuesday  the  success  was  repeated   artistically  and  augmented
financially.  Ten  louis  and  seven   livres  was  the  enormous  sum  that
Andre-Louis, the doorkeeper, counted over to M. Binet after the performance.
Never yet  had M. Binet made so  much money in one evening - and a miserable
little  village like Guichen was certainly  the last place in which he would
have expected this windfall.
     "Ah, but Guichen in time of fair," Andre-Louis reminded him. "There are
people  here  from as far as Nantes  and  Rennes to buy and sell. To-morrow,
being the last day  of the fair, the crowds  will  be greater than ever.  We
should better this evening's receipts."
     "Better them? I shall be quite satisfied if we do as well, my friend."
     "You  can  depend upon that," Andre-Louis assured him.  "Are we to have
Burgundy?"
     And  then the tragedy occurred. It announced itself  in a succession of
bumps and thuds, culminating in  a  crash outside the door that brought them
all to their feet in alarm.
     Pierrot sprang to open, and  beheld the tumbled body of a man  lying at
the foot  of the stairs. It emitted groans, therefore it was  alive. Pierrot
went forward  to turn it over, and disclosed the fact that the body wore the
wizened face of Scaramouche, a grimacing, groaning, twitching Scaramouche.
     The  whole  company,  pressing   after  Pierrot,  abandoned  itself  to
laughter.
     "I  always  said you  should change parts  with  me,"  cried Harlequin.
"You're such an excellent tumbler. Have you been practising?"
     "Fool!" Scaramouche snapped.  "Must you be  laughing when I've  all but
broken my neck?"
     "You are  right. We ought  to be  weeping because you didn't  break it.
Come, man, get up," and he held out a hand to the prostrate rogue.
     Scaramouche took the hand, clutched it, heaved himself from the ground,
then with a scream dropped back again.
     "My foot!" he complained.
     Binet rolled through the group of players, scattering them to right and
left.  Apprehension had  been quick to seize  him. Fate had played him  such
tricks before.
     "What ails your foot?" quoth he, sourly.
     "It's broken, I think," Scaramouche complained.
     "Broken? Bah!  Get up, man." He caught him under the armpits and hauled
him up.
     Scaramouche came howling to one foot; the other doubled under him  when
he attempted to set it down, and he must have collapsed again but that Binet
supported  him. He  filled the  place with  his plaint,  whilst  Binet swore
amazingly and variedly.
     "Must you bellow like a calf, you fool?  Be quiet. A  chair here,  some
one."
     A chair was thrust forward. He crushed Scaramouche down into it.
     "Let us look at this foot of yours."
     Heedless  of  Scaramouche's  howls  of pain,  he swept  away  shoe  and
stocking.
     "What ails it?" he asked, staring. "Nothing that I can see." He  seized
it, heel  in one  hand, instep in  the other,  and gyrated  it.  Scaramouche
screamed in agony, until Climene caught Binet's arm and made him stop.
     "My God,  have  you no feelings?" she reproved her father. "The lad has
hurt his foot. Must you torture him? Will that cure it?"
     "Hurt his  foot!"  said  Binet.  "I can see nothing the matter with his
foot - nothing to justify all this uproar. He has bruised it, maybe... "
     "A man with a bruised  foot doesn't scream like that," said Madame over
Climene's shoulder. "Perhaps he has dislocated it."
     "That is what I fear," whimpered Scaramouche.
     Binet heaved himself up in disgust.
     "Take him to bed," he bade them, "and fetch a doctor to see him."
     It was done, and the doctor came. Having seen the patient, he  reported
that nothing very serious had happened, but that in falling he had evidently
sprained his foot a little. A few days' rest and all would be well.
     "A few  days!" cried  Binet. "God of  God!  Do  you mean that he  can't
walk?"
     "It would be unwise, indeed impossible for more than a few steps."
     M.  Binet paid  the doctor's  fee,  and  sat down  to  think. He filled
himself  a  glass  of  Burgundy,  tossed  it  off without  a  word,  and sat
thereafter staring into the empty glass.
     "It is  of course the sort of thing that  must  always be  happening to
me,"  he grumbled to no one in particular. The  members of  the company were
all standing in silence before him, sharing his  dismay. "I might have known
that  this - or something like it - would  occur to  spoil the first vein of
luck that I have found in years. Ah, well, it is finished. To-morrow we pack
and  depart.  The  best  day  of  the fair, on  the crest of the wave of our
success - a good fifteen louis to be taken, and this happens! God of God!"
     "Do you mean to abandon to-morrow's performance?"
     All turned to stare with Binet at Andre-Louis.
     "Are we to play 'Figaro-Scaramouche' without Scaramouche?" asked Binet,
sneering.
     "Of  course  not."   Andre-Louis   came  forward.   "But  surely   some
rearrangement of the parts is possible. For instance, there is a fine  actor
in Polichinelle."
     Polichinelle swept him a bow. "Overwhelmed," said he, ever sardonic.
     "But he has a part of his own," objected Binet.
     "A small part, which Pasquariel could play."
     "And who will play Pasquariel?"
     "Nobody. We delete it. The play need not suffer."
     "He thinks of everything," sneered Polichinelle. "What a man!"
     But Binet was far from agreement. "Are you suggesting that Polichinelle
should play Scaramouche?" he asked, incredulously.
     "Why not? He is able enough!"
     "Overwhelmed again," interjected Polichinelle.
     "Play Scaramouche with that figure?" Binet heaved himself up to point a
denunciatory finger at Polichinelle's sturdy, thick-set shortness.
     "For lack of a better," said Andre-Louis.
     "Overwhelmed more than ever." Polichinelle's bow was superb  this time.
"Faith, I think I'll take the air to cool me after so much blushing."
     "Go to the devil," Binet flung at him.
     "Better  and better." Polichinelle made for the  door. On the threshold
he halted  and struck an attitude. "Understand me,  Binet. I do not now play
Scaramouche in any circumstances whatever." And he  went out.  On the whole,
it was a very dignified exit.
     Andre-Louis  shrugged, threw out his  arms, and  let them  fall to  his
sides  again. "You  have ruined everything,"  he  told M. Binet. "The matter
could easily have been arranged.  Well, well, it is you are master here; and
since you want us to pack and be off, that is what we will do, I suppose."
     He went out,  too.  M. Binet  stood in thought a  moment, then followed
him, his little eyes very  cunning. He caught him up in the doorway. "Let us
take a walk together, M. Parvissimus," said he, very affably.
     He  thrust his arm  through  Andre-Louis',  and  led  him  out into the
street, where  there was still considerable movement. Past the  booths  that
ranged  about the market they went, and down the hill towards the bridge. "I
don't think we shall pack to-morrow," said M. Binet, presently. "In fact, we
shall play to-morrow night."
     "Not if I know Polichinelle. You have... "
     "I am not thinking of Polichinelle."
     "Of whom, then?"
     "Of yourself."
     "I  am  flattered, sir. And  in what capacity  are you thinking of me?"
There was something  too sleek  and  oily  in Binet's voice for Andre-Louis'
taste.
     "I am thinking of you in the part of Scaramouche."
     "Day-dreams," said Andre-Louis. "You are amusing yourself, of course."
     "Not in the least. I am quite serious."
     "But I am not an actor."
     "You told me that you could be."
     "Oh, upon occasion... a small part, perhaps... "
     "Well, here  is a  big part  - the chance to arrive at a single stride.
How many men have had such a chance?"
     "It is a chance I do not covet, M. Binet. Shall we change the subject?"
He was very frosty, as much perhaps because he scented in M.  Binet's manner
something that was vaguely menacing as for any other reason.
     "We'll change the  subject when  I please,"  said M.  Binet, allowing a
glimpse of  steel to glimmer  through the silk of him. "To-morrow night  you
play Scaramouche. You are ready enough  in your  wits, your figure is ideal,
and  you have just the kind of mordant humour for the part. You should  be a
great success."
     "It is much more likely that I should be an egregious failure."
     "That won't matter," said Binet, cynically, and explained himself. "The
failure will be personal to yourself. The receipts will be safe by then."
     "Much obliged," said Andre-Louis.
     "We should take fifteen louis to-morrow night."
     "It  is  unfortunate   that  you  are   without  a  Scaramouche,"  said
Andre-Louis.
     "It  is  fortunate  that  I  have  one,  M.  Parvissimus."  Andre-Louis
disengaged his arm. "I begin to find you tiresome," said he. "I think I will
return."
     "A moment, M. Parvissimus. If I am to lose that fifteen louis...
     you'll not take it amiss that I compensate myself in other ways?"
     "That is your own concern, M. Binet."
     "Pardon, M. Parvissimus. It may possibly be also yours." Binet took his
arm again.  "Do me  the kindness to step  across the street with me. Just as
far as the post-office there. I have something to show you."
     Andre-Louis went. Before they reached that  sheet  of paper nailed upon
the door, he knew exactly what it would say. And in effect it was, as he had
supposed,  that twenty  louis would be  paid for information  leading to the
apprehension of one  Andre-Louis Moreau, lawyer of Gavrillac, who was wanted
by the King's Lieutenant in Rennes upon a charge of sedition.
     M.  Binet watched  him  whilst  he  read.  Their arms were linked,  and
Binet's grip was firm and powerful.
     "Now,  my friend,"  said  he,  "will  you be M.  Parvissimus  and  play
Scaramouche to-morrow, or will you be Andre-Louis Moreau of Gavrillac and go
to Rennes to satisfy the King's Lieutenant?"
     "And if it should happen that you are mistaken?" quoth Andre-Louis, his
face a mask.
     "I'll take the risk of that," leered M. Binet. "You mentioned, I think,
that you  were a lawyer. An indiscretion, my dear. It  is  unlikely that two
lawyers  will be in hiding at the same time in the same district. You see it
is  not  really clever  of  me.  Well,  M.  Andre-Louis  Moreau,  lawyer  of
Gavrillac, what is it to be?"
     "We will talk it over as we walk back," said Andre-Louis.
     "What is there to talk over?"
     "One or  two things, I think. I must know where I stand.  Come, sir, if
you please."
     "Very well," said M. Binet, and they turned up the street again, but M.
Binet maintained a firm hold of his young friend's  arm, and kept himself on
the alert for any tricks that the young gentleman might be disposed to play.
It was an unnecessary  precaution. Andre-Louis was not the man to  waste his
energy futilely. He knew that in  bodily strength he was no match at all for
the heavy and powerful Pantaloon.
     "If I yield to your most eloquent and seductive persuasions, M. Binet,"
said  he, sweetly,  "what guarantee do you give me that you will not sell me
for twenty louis after I shall have served your turn?"
     "You have my word of honour for that." M. Binet was emphatic.
     Andre-Louis  laughed. "Oh, we are to talk of honour, are we? Really, M.
Binet? It is clear you think me a fool."
     In the  dark  he  did not see the flush  that leapt to M. Binet's round
face. It was some moments before he replied.
     "Perhaps you are right," he growled. "What guarantee do you want?"
     "I do not know what guarantee you can possibly give."
     "I have said that I will keep faith with you."
     "Until you find it more profitable to sell me."
     "You have it in your power to make it more profitable always  for me to
keep faith with you. It  is due to you that we have done so well in Guichen.
Oh, I admit it frankly."
     "In private," said Andre-Louis.
     M. Binet left the sarcasm unheeded.
     "What  you have done for us here with 'Figaro-Scaramouche,' you  can do
elsewhere  with other things. Naturally, I  shall not want to lose you. That
is your guarantee."
     "Yet to-night you would sell me for twenty louis."
     "Because - name of God! - you enrage me by refusing me  a service  well
within your powers. Don't you think, had I been entirely the rogue you think
me, I could have sold you  on Saturday last? I want you to understand me, my
dear Parvissimus."
     "I beg that  you'll  not apologize. You  would  be  more  tiresome than
ever."
     "Of course you will  be gibing. You never miss  a chance to gibe. It'll
bring you  trouble before you're done with life.  Come;  here we are back at
the inn, and you have not yet given me your decision."
     Andre-Louis  looked at  him.  "I  must yield,  of course. I  can't help
myself."
     M.  Binet released his arm  at last, and slapped him heartily upon  the
back. "Well declared, my lad. You'll never  regret it. If I know anything of
the  theatre,  I know that you have made the great  decision  of  your life.
To-morrow night you'll thank me."
     Andre-Louis  shrugged,  and stepped out ahead  towards the inn.  But M.
Binet called him back.
     "M. Parvissimus!"
     He turned. There stood the man's great bulk, the moonlight beating down
upon that round fat face of his, and he was holding out his hand.
     "M. Parvissimus, no rancour. It is a thing I do not admit into my life.
You will shake hands with me, and we will forget all this."
     Andre-Louis considered him a moment with disgust. He was growing angry.
Then, realizing this, he conceived himself ridi