How did
that happen?' said Chapelle, greatly interested. 'Why,' replied Seveste,
'one evening I took it to my dressing-room at the theatre; as I was
going home after the performance, a terrible storm came on, and my poor
carp, in trying to leap a gutter, fell in and was drowned.'--'How very
unlucky!' cried Chapelle; 'I always thought a carp could swim like a
fish!' As he grew older, however, Chapelle, weary of being continually
hoaxed, made up his mind to believe nothing, and carried his scepticism
so far as to reply to a friend's anxious inquiries after his health,
'Ask somebody else that question, my fine fellow; you can't take _me_ in
now.'" Another of the company, Carpentier, drank away his memory, forgot
his old parts, and could learn no new ones. For a long time he did not
act, but at last ventured to appear in a procession, as a barber who had
nothing to say. The audience immediately recognised their old favourite,
and applauded him for several minutes after he left the stage. Once more
behind the scenes, he exclaimed, "Ils m'ont reconnu! Ils m'ont reconnu!"
and burst into tears. "In one of his parts, Carpentier had some couplets
to sing, of which the first ran as follows:--

Un acteur,
Qui veut de l'auteur
Suivre en tout
L'esprit et le gout,
Doit d'abord,
De savoir son role,
Faire au moins le petit effort.

Here he stopped short, and repeated the verse thrice, but could get no
further; from that day a settled gloom came over him, and he soon
committed suicide, by throwing himself out of a window."

The great guns of the present Vaudeville company are, Arnal, Bardou, and
Felix; Madame Albert, lately become Madame Bignon, by a second marriage;
and Madame Doche, sister of Miss Plunkett the dancer. It would be
difficult to find five better actors in their respective styles. All of
them, with the exception, we believe, of Bardou, have performed in
London, and been received with enthusiasm as great as the chilly
audience of the St. James's theatre ever thinks fit to manifest. Arnal,
although he has formidable rivals at his own and other theatres, is
unquestionably the first French comic actor of the day. Farce is his
_forte_--we ask his pardon, and would say, comedy, vaudeville, _charge_,
extravaganza, or any other names by which it may be fitting to designate
the very farcical pieces in which he usually performs. There are no
farces now upon the French stage; the term is voted low. M