sant of a rather
Whitechapelish-costermongerish-out-on-a-Sunday appearance, but
picturesque withal. They are engaged; at least, if they are not they
ought to be. Then comes a handsome elderly lady, disguised like a
fairy godmother in a pantomime before she throws off her hood and
announces her real character, and this lady, called _Taven_ in the
bill, is Mlle. PASSAMA, who sings a song about a _papillon_, for what
particular reason I do not know, except to please the audience, which
it did, being encored, and to puzzle _Mireille_, in which it also
succeeded, if I might judge by Miss EAMES's expressive countenance.
And here I must observe that I found my intimate acquaintance with
the French language almost useless, for except an occasional "_oui_,"
given, as _Jeames_ has it, "in excellent French," and for some
allusions to "_le papillon_" just mentioned, and "_et alors_"--which
didn't help me much, even when given twice most dramatically by M.
ISNARDON,--I couldn't catch a single word, and as far as libretto
went, it might have been, for me personally, given in double-Dutch,
or the dialect of a South-African tribe.

[Illustration: The Wicked Vibrato Peasant with the big
Toasting-cum-Tuning-Fork.]

On the disappearance of _Taven_,--[she didn't take off her cloak, and
wasn't a fairy, which rather put me off the scent, I admit,]--in comes
a gorgeous person, six feet high at least, and stout in proportion,
who, as I gathered from the programme, was _Ourrias_ (what a name!),
played by Signor CESTE, and sung with a kind of double vibrato stop in
his organ, which seemed, when turned on full, to make the upper boxes
quiver. Well, in he comes, and tells _Mireille_ something--what,
I don't know--but this is how the row began, as, in less than five
minutes, two old men, one M. ISNARDON, dramatic and in tune, and
the other, not mentioned in my programme, and therefore pardonably
somewhat out of tune, enter and commence a rumpus; what the difficulty
was all about I am not clear, but the upshot was that the old man in
tune cursed his daughter, and the old man out of tune held back his
son VINCENT, and prevented him from first assaulting and then being
assaulted by the irate _Maitre Ramon_, i.e., M. ISNARDON. The Chorus
of Unhappy Villagers forms _tableau_. End of Act the Second; in Act
the First there was no action at all, and everything had gone off as
pleasantly as possible.

[Illustration: The Happy Peasant Boy with his Long P