mediately
scored a huge success.

"The Opera ghost! The Opera ghost!" Everybody laughed and pushed his
neighbor and wanted to offer the Opera ghost a drink, but he was gone.
He had slipped through the crowd; and the others vainly hunted for him,
while two old gentlemen tried to calm little Jammes and while little
Giry stood screaming like a peacock.

Sorelli was furious; she had not been able to finish her speech; the
managers, had kissed her, thanked her and run away as fast as the ghost
himself. No one was surprised at this, for it was known that they were
to go through the same ceremony on the floor above, in the foyer of the
singers, and that finally they were themselves to receive their
personal friends, for the last time, in the great lobby outside the
managers' office, where a regular supper would be served.

Here they found the new managers, M. Armand Moncharmin and M. Firmin
Richard, whom they hardly knew; nevertheless, they were lavish in
protestations of friendship and received a thousand flattering
compliments in reply, so that those of the guests who had feared that
they had a rather tedious evening in store for them at once put on
brighter faces. The supper was almost gay and a particularly clever
speech of the representative of the government, mingling the glories of
the past with the successes of the future, caused the greatest
cordiality to prevail.

The retiring managers had already handed over to their successors the
two tiny master-keys which opened all the doors--thousands of doors--of
the Opera house. And those little keys, the object of general
curiosity, were being passed from hand to hand, when the attention of
some of the guests was diverted by their discovery, at the end of the
table, of that strange, wan and fantastic face, with the hollow eyes,
which had already appeared in the foyer of the ballet and been greeted
by little Jammes' exclamation:

"The Opera ghost!"

There sat the ghost, as natural as could be, except that he neither ate
nor drank. Those who began by looking at him with a smile ended by
turning away their heads, for the sight of him at once provoked the
most funereal thoughts. No one repeated the joke of the foyer, no one
exclaimed:

"There's the Opera ghost!"

He himself did not speak a word and his very neighbors could not have
stated at what precise moment he had sat down between them; but every
one felt that if the dead did ever come and sit at the table