xamining
it. "Don't touch it, Monsieur Frederic," cried an employe: "it's the
gas-regulator." "Bah! has the gas got a regulator, then? Lucky gas!
Let's see what will happen." With this he turned the knob and plunged
the whole theatre into darkness. Two thousand Frenchmen and women cried
out in alarm and consternation. Great was their indignation and savage
their inquiries as to the cause of the occurrence. But no sooner were
they informed that Lemaitre had committed this hangable feat than the
joke seemed charming, and when he came on the stage in the following act
they received him with bravos and joyous laughs.

Lemaitre was indeed a spoiled child of the public, and his prodigious
success began to have the effect which success often has upon us poor
mortals. He became impatient of all restraint, jealous of all honor
offered to his confreres. The Ambigu won him away from the Porte
Saint-Martin after a short time, and on the stage of his first successes
he was supported by Madame Dorval, one of the finest actresses the
French stage has known. These two dramatic powers did wonders, and the
public divided its applause between them. This did not suit the petted
genius. He complained to the manager. "Your horrible _claque_ splits my
ears," he cried in a fury: "I expect you to get rid of it at once. Or if
not--" Before his _ultimatum_ was pronounced Madame Dorval appeared.
"Are you crazy?" she said to the manager: "what is the use of these
imbeciles with their hand-clapping? Drive them all away from the
theatre, and leave the real public to its own impressions. If your
Romans[B] do not at once disappear, I play no more."--"Nor I," said
Lemaitre.--"So be it," said the manager: "the claque shall be
discharged."

Such a bold step in a Paris theatre was almost unheard of. What! try to
run a theatre without the regular corps of hired applauders? The thing
was incredible. But the leading artists demanded it, and the manager
notified his claqueurs that their pay was stopped. That night not a
ripple of applause disturbed the monotony of the performance. The
public, left to itself, and accustomed to have a gang of paid worthies
to start the applause at the right moment, applauded neither Lemaitre
nor Dorval, nor any of the other players. "It is evident," said Lemaitre
to himself, "that people who admire my acting fear being mistaken for
hired claqueurs if they express their enthusiasm. I must arrange that."
He therefore quietly cau