s wife and daughter were
not, strictly speaking, for his benefit, but for the benefit of that
mysterious and unknown genius, whose trustee he considered himself to
be.

There was a certain analogy between the position of the Chebe family and
that of the Delobelles. But the latter household was less depressing.
The Chebes felt that their petty annuitant existence was fastened
upon them forever, with no prospect of amelioration, always the
same; whereas, in the actor's family, hope and illusion often opened
magnificent vistas.

The Chebes were like people living in a blind alley; the Delobelles on
a foul little street, where there was no light or air, but where a great
boulevard might some day be laid out. And then, too, Madame Chebe no
longer believed in her husband, whereas, by virtue of that single magic
word, "Art!" her neighbor never had doubted hers.

And yet for years and years Monsieur Delobelle had been unavailingly
drinking vermouth with dramatic agents, absinthe with leaders of
claques, bitters with vaudevillists, dramatists, and the famous
what's-his-name, author of several great dramas. Engagements did not
always follow. So that, without once appearing on the boards, the poor
man had progressed from jeune premier to grand premier roles, then to
the financiers, then to the noble fathers, then to the buffoons--

He stopped there!

On two or three occasions his friends had obtained for him a chance to
earn his living as manager of a club or a cafe as an inspector in great
warehouses, at the 'Phares de la Bastille' or the 'Colosse de Rhodes.'
All that was necessary was to have good manners. Delobelle was not
lacking in that respect, God knows! And yet every suggestion that was
made to him the great man met with a heroic refusal.

"I have no right to abandon the stage!" he would then assert.

In the mouth of that poor devil, who had not set foot on the boards
for years, it was irresistibly comical. But one lost the inclination
to laugh when one saw his wife and his daughter swallowing particles of
arsenic day and night, and heard them repeat emphatically as they broke
their needles against the brass wire with which the little birds were
mounted:

"No! no! Monsieur Delobelle has no right to abandon the stage."

Happy man, whose bulging eyes, always smiling condescendingly, and
whose habit of reigning on the stage had procured for him for life that
exceptional position of a spoiled and admired child-king!