mpatient to allow his tutor to lead up
gradually to the inevitable question, "if you can remember some English
players coming over here about eighteen years ago and acting a play
called _Hamlet_ in English."

The landlord blew a cloud of smoke from his lips, and stared round at
the speaker as if he had been a ghost.

"Why do you ask me that? _'Amlet_! Can I forget it?"

Here was a bolt out of the blue! The tutor's eye-glass dropped with a
clatter against his cup, and Roger fetched a breath half gasp, half
sigh.

"You remember it!" exclaimed he, seizing the man's hand; "do you know,
we have been a fortnight in Boulogne trying to find some one who did!"

"Would not _you_ remember it," replied the Frenchman, with a
gesticulation, "if 'Amlet had put up at your inn and gone away without
paying his bill?"

"Did one of the actors stay here, then?"

"One? There was twenty 'Amlets, and Miladi 'Amlets, and Mademoiselle
'Amlets. They all stay here, _en famille_. The house is full of
'Amlets. The stable is full. They bring with them a castle of 'Amlet,
and a grave of 'Amlet. My poor house was all 'Amlet!"

"And," inquired Mr Armstrong, flushed with the sudden discovery, but as
cool as ever, "you had a pass to see the play, of course?"

"_Mon dieu_! it was all the pay I got. 'Amlet come to my house with his
twenty hungry mouth, and eat me up, flesh and bone. He sleep in my
beds, he sleep on my roof, he sleep in my stable. The place is
'Amlet's. And all my pay is one piece of card bidding me see him play
himself."

"And was it well played?" Asked Mr Armstrong.

"Well played? How do I know? But six persons came to see it--I one--
and in six minutes it is all done. Your English 'Amlet will not play to
the empty bench. He call down the curtain, and bid us go where we
please. Not even will he pay us back our money. Then, when he come to
leave the hall himself, _voila_, he has no money to pay his rent. His
baggage is seized, and 'Amlet fights. _Mon dieu_, there was _une
emeute_ in Boulogne that night; and before day 'Amlet has vanish like
his own ghost, and I am a robbed man; _voila_."

"Very rough on you," said the tutor. "So there was a ghost among the
players?"

"Why no? It would not be _'Amlet_ without."

"Did the ghost stay here too?"

"_Helas_! yes. He eat, and drink, and sleep, and forgets to pay, like
the rest."

"What did you lose by him?" asked Roger, with parched lips.

"Ah, monsie