ing I will send one of my stout farm-horses to bring your
chariot on here, and we will rig up a theatre in my big barn; there is a
large town not far from this which will send us plenty of spectators.
If the entertainment does not fetch as good a sum as I think it will, I
have a little fund of pistoles lying idle here that will be entirely at
your service, for, by Apollo! I would not leave my good Blazius and his
friends in distress so long as I had a copper in my purse."

"I see that you are always the same warm-hearted, openhanded Bellombre
as of old," cried the pedant, grasping the other's outstretched hand
warmly; "you have not grown rusty and hard in consequence of your
bucolic occupations."

"No," Bellombre replied, with a smile; "I do not let my brain lie fallow
while I cultivate my fields. I make a point of reading over frequently
the good old authors, seated comfortably by the fire with my feet on
the fender, and I read also such new works as I am able to procure, from
time to time, here in the depths of the country. I often go carefully
over my own old parts, and I see plainly what a self-satisfied fool
I was in the old days, when I was applauded to the echo every time I
appeared upon the stage, simply because I happened to be blessed with
a sonorous voice, a graceful carriage, and a fine leg; the doting
stupidity of the public, with which I chanced to be a favourite, was the
true cause of my success."

"Only the great Bellombre himself would ever be suffered to say such
things as these of that most illustrious ornament of our profession,"
said the tyrant, courteously.

"Art is long, but life is short," continued the ci-devant actor, "and I
should have arrived at a certain degree of proficiency at last perhaps,
but--I was beginning to grow stout; and I would not allow myself to
cling to the stage until two footmen should have to come and help me up
from my rheumatic old knees every time I had a declaration of love
to make, so I gladly seized the opportunity afforded me by my little
inheritance, and retired in the height of my glory."

"And you were wise, Bellombre," said Blazius, "though your retreat was
premature; you might have given ten years more to the theatre, and then
have retired full early."

In effect he was still a very handsome, vigorous man, about whom no
signs of age were apparent, save an occasional thread of silver amid the
rich masses of dark hair that fell upon his shoulders.

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