him to the restaurant opposite the play-house, where Lemaitre was
indulging in monstrous dinners and was usually hilarious with wine.
Harel, it must be mentioned, was a very penurious man, who never paid
his people when he could postpone it, and whose meanness of soul
Lemaitre delighted to excoriate. Often when dining bountifully at his
restaurant, the actor being sent for in hot haste with the intelligence
that the curtain was just going up, would cry, "_Diable!_ And I haven't
a sou in my pocket! Here's the bill. Carry it to Harel, and tell him
they are keeping me here as a hostage." Though grinding his teeth with
rage, the manager never failed to send the necessary sum for the release
of his principal actor. At other times, when Lemaitre had breakfasted
copiously, he did not dine, but the manager's purse then ran another
peril. His actor would arrive at the theatre in a carriage, after having
been driven about for five or six hours "for the benefit of his
digestion," as he said, but never did he have the necessary sum to
settle with the _cocher_, and again Harel paid before Lemaitre would get
out of the vehicle. At other times during an _entr' acte_ Lemaitre would
disappear from the theatre, and when the curtain was ready to go up
again could nowhere be found. "Frederic! where is Frederic?" the
distracted manager would cry. Frederic was down stairs in the cafe under
the theatre playing games where the stakes were high, and almost always
losing. "Monsieur Frederic, the curtain is up!" the prompter would rush
in to say. "_Ciel!_ What can I do?" the imperturbable actor would reply.
"I can't leave here, my dear fellow: I must win back what I've lost."
Poor Harel had to pay again. As the receipts of the theatre were large,
he did not dare complain much of these forced presents of money:
Lemaitre called them his perquisites. He had a profound contempt for his
manager's slippery financial manoeuvres. Harel was really almost as
eccentric in his own way as Lemaitre was in his. The history of some of
his subterfuges with his creditors would make a curious chapter. One day
he stuck up the following notice in the theatre: "To-morrow the
box-office will be open from three-quarters past two until a quarter
before three for the payment of claims." The box-office was besieged at
half-past two by a crowd of creditors who had failed to see the hoax.

"My dear Frederic," said Harel one night to the actor, "I have a
proposition to make t