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By Root 1420 0

and actresses awaiting their cues. For some little while Mignon had been amusing himself again by overwhelming Fauchery with delicate attentions. He had just imagined a little game, which consisted in every now and then snapping his fingers close to the journalistic nose, to keep the flies off, as he said. This little business naturally amused the onlookers immensely. But suddenly, Mignon, carried away by his success, taking a greater interest in the performance, gave the journalist what was really a blow, and a good hard blow too. This time he had gone too far. Fauchery could not, in the presence of the others, smilingly receive such a punch on the nose. And the two men, putting an end to the comedy, their faces livid and full of hate, had sprung at each others’ throats. They rolled about the stage, behind one of the side-scenes, calling each other the vilest names imaginable.

“M. Bordenave! M. Bordenave!” cried the terrified stage-manager, panting for breath.

Bordenave followed him, after having begged to be excused by the prince. When he recognised Fauchery and Mignon on the ground, he made a gesture implying that he was very much put out. Really, they chose a nice time, with His Highness on the other side of the scenery, and all the audience, who could overhear them! To complete his annoyance, Rose Mignon arrived, all out of breath, and at the moment she had to go on the stage. Vulcan gave her her cue, but Rose remained as though petrified, as she caught sight of her husband and her lover lying at her feet, strangling each other, struggling together, their hair all in disorder, their clothes covered with dust. She was unable to pass them, and one of the scene-shifters only just succeeded in catching hold of Fauchery’s hat as it was rolling into view of the audience. Vulcan, who had meanwhile interpolated a string of gag to amuse the audience, again gave Rose her cue. But she stood watching the two men, without moving.

“Don’t look at them!” angrily whispered Bordenave behind her. “Go on! go on! It’s nothing to do with you! You’re missing your cue!”

And, pushed forward by him, Rose stepped over the prostrate bodies, and found herself before the audience in the glare of the footlights. She had not understood why they were on the ground fighting together. All in a tremble, and with a buzzing in her ears, she walked towards the conductor with the bewitching smile of an amorous Diana, and gave the first line of her duo in so warm a voice, that she received quite an ovation. But she could still hear the two men pommelling each other at the side. They had now rolled to within a few steps of the footlights. Fortunately the noise of the band prevented the sound of the blows reaching the audience.

“Damnation!” exclaimed Bordenave, exasperated, when he had at length succeeded in separating the pair, “couldn’t you go and fight it out in your own place? You know very well I don’t like this sort of thing. You, Mignon, you will do me the pleasure of remaining here, on the prompt side; and you, Fauchery, I’ll kick you out of the theatre if you dare to leave the o.p.al side. Now, that’s understood, eh? Prompt side and o.p. side, or else I’ll forbid Rose to bring you here again.”

When he returned to the prince, the latter asked what had been the matter. “Oh! nothing at all,” he calmly murmured.

Nana, wrapped in a fur cloak, stood talking to the gentlemen while she waited for her cue. As Count Muffat advanced to obtain a view of the stage between two side scenes, he understood from a sign of the stage-manager that he must tread softly. All was quiet up above. In the wings, which were most brilliantly lighted up, a few persons were standing talking in whispers, or moving off on tiptoe. The gas-man was at his post, close to the complicated collection of taps; a fireman, leaning against one of the supports, was stretching his neck trying to get a glimpse of the performance; whilst the man who manœuvred the curtain was waiting on his seat up aloft, with a resigned look on his countenance, quite ignoring the piece and merely listening