at all the gossip in which La Cibot indulged
on her round. The members of every family, the head-mistress of every
boarding-school, were treated to a variation upon the theme of
Pons' illness. A single scene, which took place in the Illustrious
Gaudissart's private room, will give a sufficient idea of the rest. La
Cibot met with unheard-of difficulties, but she succeeded in penetrating
at last to the presence. Kings and cabinet ministers are less difficult
of access than the manager of a theatre in Paris; nor is it hard to
understand why such prodigious barriers are raised between them and
ordinary mortals: a king has only to defend himself from ambition; the
manager of a theatre has reason to dread the wounded vanity of actors
and authors.

La Cibot, however, struck up an acquaintance with the portress, and
traversed all distances in a brief space. There is a sort of freemasonry
among the porter tribe, and, indeed, among the members of every
profession; for each calling has its shibboleth, as well as its
insulting epithet and the mark with which it brands its followers.

"Ah! madame, you are the portress here," began La Cibot. "I myself am a
portress, in a small way, in a house in the Rue de Normandie. M. Pons,
your conductor, lodges with us. Oh, how glad I should be to have your
place, and see the actors and dancers and authors go past. It is the
marshal's baton in our profession, as the old actor said."

"And how is M. Pons going on, good man?" inquired the portress.

"He is not going on at all; he has not left his bed these two months. He
will only leave the house feet foremost, that is certain."

"He will be missed."

"Yes. I have come with a message to the manager from him. Just try to
get me a word with him, dear."

"A lady from M. Pons to see you, sir!" After this fashion did the youth
attached to the service of the manager's office announce La Cibot, whom
the portress below had particularly recommended to his care.

Gaudissart had just come in for a rehearsal. Chance so ordered it that
no one wished to speak with him; actors and authors were alike late.
Delighted to have news of his conductor, he made a Napoleonic gesture,
and La Cibot was admitted.

The sometime commercial traveler, now the head of a popular theatre,
regarded his sleeping partners in the light of a legitimate wife;
they were not informed of all his doings. The flourishing state of
his finances had reacted upon his person. Grown big a