y companion.

"And where were you before you left France?" I asked.

"At La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, where Madame Caterna achieved a genuine
success as Elsa in 'Lohengrin,' which we played without music. But it
is an interesting piece, and it was well done."

"You must have been a good deal about the world, Monsieur Caterna?"

"I believe you; Russia, England, both Americas. Ah! Monsieur Claudius."

He already called me Claudius.

"Ah! Monsieur Claudius, there was a time when I was the idol of Buenos
Ayres, and the pet of Rio Janeiro! Do not think I would tell you an
untruth! No! I know myself. Bad at Paris, I am excellent in the
provinces. In Paris you play for yourself; in the provinces you play
for the others! And then what a repertory!"

"My compliments, my dear compatriot!"

"I accept them, Monsieur Claudius, for I like my trade. What would you
haye? All the world cannot expect to be a senator or--a special
correspondent."

"There, that is wicked, Monsieur Caterna," said I, with a laugh.

"No; it is the last word."

And while the unwearied actor ran on in this way, stations appeared one
after the other between the shrieks of the whistle, Kulka, Nisachurch,
Kulla Minor and others, not particularly cheerful to look at; then
Bairam Ali at the seven hundred and ninety-fifth verst and Kourlan Kala
at the eight hundred and fifteenth.

"And to tell you the truth," continued Caterna, "we have made a little
money by going about from town to town. At the bottom of our boxes are
a few Northern debentures, of which I think a good deal, and take much
care, and they have been honestly got, Monsieur Claudius. Although we
live under a democratic government, the rule of equality, the time is
still far off when you will see the noble father dining beside the
prefect at the table of the judge of appeal, and the actress open the
ball with the prefect at the house of the general-in-chief! Well! We
can dine and dance among ourselves--"

"And be just as happy, Monsieur Caterna."

"Certainly no less, Monsieur Claudius," replied the future premier
comic of Shanghai, shaking an imaginary frill with the graceful ease of
one of Louis XV.'s noblemen.

At this point, Madame Caterna came up. She was in every way worthy of
her husband, sent into the world to reply to him in life as on the
stage, one of those genial theater folks, born one knows not where or
how, but thoroughly genuine and good-natured.

"I beg to introduce you to Ca