inconsiderable customers.
A commercial traveller is received, he also, upon a reduction - yet

is he welcome, yet can he command the fatted calf; but an artist,
had he the manners of an Almaviva, were he dressed like Solomon in

all his glory, is received like a dog and served like a timid lady
travelling alone.

Accustomed as he was to the rubs of his profession, Berthelini was
unpleasantly affected by the landlord's manner.

"Elvira," said he to his wife, "mark my words: Castel-le-Gachis is
a tragic folly."

"Wait till we see what we take," replied Elvira.
"We shall take nothing," returned Berthelini; "we shall feed upon

insults. I have an eye, Elvira: I have a spirit of divination;
and this place is accursed. The landlord has been discourteous,

the Commissary will be brutal, the audience will be sordid and
uproarious, and you will take a cold upon your throat. We have

been besotted enough to come; the die is cast - it will be a second
Sedan."

Sedan was a town hateful to the Berthelinis, not only from
patriotism (for they were French, and answered after the flesh to

the somewhat homely name of Duval), but because it had been the
scene of their most sad reverses. In that place they had lain

three weeks in pawn for their hotel bill, and had it not been for a
surprising stroke of fortune they might have been lying there in

pawn until this day. To mention the name of Sedan was for the
Berthelinis to dip the brush in earthquake and eclipse. Count

Almaviva slouched his hat with a gestureexpressive of despair, and
even Elvira felt as if ill-fortune had been personally invoked.

"Let us ask for breakfast," said she, with a woman's tact.
The Commissary of Police of Castel-le-Gachis was a large red

Commissary, pimpled, and subject to a strong cutaneous
transpiration. I have repeated the name of his office because he

was so very much more a Commissary than a man. The spirit of his
dignity had entered into him. He carried his corporation as if it

were something official. Whenever he insulted a common citizen it
seemed to him as if he were adroitly flattering the Government by a

side wind; in default of dignity he was brutal from an overweening
sense of duty. His office was a den, whence passers-by could hear

rude accents laying down, not the law, but the good pleasure of the
Commissary.

Six several times in the course of the day did M. Berthelini hurry
thither in quest of the requisitepermission for his evening's

entertainment; six several times he found the official was abroad.
Leon Berthelini began to grow quite a familiar figure in the

streets of Castel-le-Gachis; he became a local celebrity, and was
pointed out as "the man who was looking for the Commissary." Idle

children attached themselves to his footsteps, and trotted after
him back and forward between the hotel and the office. Leon might

try as he liked; he might roll cigarettes, he might straddle, he
might cock his hat at a dozen different jaunty inclinations - the

part of Almaviva was, under the circumstances, difficult to play.
As he passed the market-place upon the seventh excursion the

Commissary was pointed out to him, where he stood, with his
waistcoat unbuttoned and his hands behind his back, to superintend

the sale and measurement" target="_blank" title="n.测量；尺寸；宽度">measurement of butter. Berthelini threaded his way
through the market stalls and baskets, and accosted the dignitary

with a bow which was a triumph of the histrionic art.
"I have the honour," he asked, "of meeting M. le Commissaire?"

The Commissary was affected by the nobility of his address. He
excelled Leon in the depth if not in the airy grace of his

salutation.
"The honour," said he, "is mine!"

"I am," continued the strolling-player, "I am, sir, an artist, and
I have permitted myself to interrupt you on an affair of business.

To-night I give a triflingmusicalentertainment at the Cafe of the
Triumphs of the Plough - permit me to offer you this little

programme - and I have come to ask you for the necessary
authorisation."

At the word "artist," the Commissary had replaced his hat with the
air of a person who, having condescended too far, should suddenly

remember the duties of his rank.
"Go, go," said he, "I am busy - I am measuring butter."

"Heathen Jew!" thought Leon. "Permit me, sir," he resumed aloud.
"I have gone six times already - "

"Put up your bills if you choose," interrupted the Commissary. "In
an hour or so I will examine your papers at the office. But now

go; I am busy."
"Measuring butter!" thought Berthelini. "Oh, France, and it is for

this that we made '93!"
The preparations were soon made; the bills posted, programmes laid

on the dinner-table of every hotel in the town, and a stage erected
at one end of the Cafe of the Triumphs of the Plough; but when Leon

returned to the office, the Commissary was once more abroad.
"He is like Madame Benoiton," thought Leon, "Fichu Commissaire!"

And just then he met the man face to face.
"Here, sir," said he, "are my papers. Will you be pleased to

verify?"
But the Commissary was now intent upon dinner.

"No use," he replied, "no use; I am busy; I am quite satisfied.
Give your entertainment."

And he hurried on.
"Fichu Commissaire!" thought Leon.

CHAPTER II
The audience was pretty large; and the proprietor of the cafe made

a good thing of it in beer. But the Berthelinis exerted themselves
in vain.

Leon was radiant in velveteen; he had a rakish way of smoking a
cigarette between his songs that was worth money in itself; he

underlined his comic points, so that the dullest numskull in
Castel-le-Gachis had a notion when to laugh; and he handled his

guitar in a manner worthy of himself. Indeed his play with that
instrument was as good as a whole romantic drama; it was so

dashing, so florid, and so cavalier.
Elvira, on the other hand, sang her patriotic and romantic songs

with more than usual expression; her voice had charm and plangency;
and as Leon looked at her, in her low-bodied maroon dress, with her

arms bare to the shoulder, and a red flower set provocatively in
her corset, he repeated to himself for the many hundredth time that

she was one of the loveliest creatures in the world of women.
Alas! when she went round with the tambourine, the golden youth of

Castel-le-Gachis turned from her coldly. Here and there a single
halfpenny was forthcoming; the net result of a collection never

exceeded half a franc; and the Maire himself, after seven different
applications, had contributed exactly twopence. A certain chill

began to settle upon the artists themselves; it seemed as if they
were singing to slugs; Apollo himself might have lost heart with

such an audience. The Berthelinis struggled against the
impression; they put their back into their work, they sang loud and

louder, the guitar twanged like a living thing; and at last Leon
arose in his might, and burst with inimitable conviction into his

great song, "Y a des honnetes gens partout!" Never had he given
more proof of his artisticmastery; it was his intimate,

indefeasible conviction that Castel-le-Gachis formed an exception
to the law he was now lyrically proclaiming, and was peopled

exclusively by thieves and bullies; and yet, as I say, he flung it
down like a challenge, he trolled it forth like an article of

faith; and his face so beamed the while that you would have thought
he must make converts of the benches.

He was at the top of his register, with his head thrown back and
his mouth open, when the door was thrown violently open, and a pair

of new comers marched noisily into the cafe. It was the
Commissary, followed by the Garde Champetre.

The undaunted Berthelini still continued to proclaim, "Y a des
honnetes gens partout!" But now the sentiment produced an audible