s amply repaid with a sou at the
end of the evening. The footstool is welcome, for a Frenchwoman is ill
at ease at a place of amusement without her little "bench" under her
foot: it is invariably brought her at theatres or cafes, as a rule;
and each of the larger theatres in Paris has a dozen or so of these
"ouvreuses," as they are called, who are paid usually two sous by each
lady who accepts a little bench. In the present instance the fee is as
small as it possibly could be, and the bench-woman ekes out her income
by selling cakes, oranges and candies. Curiosity to know her earnings
elicits the frank reply that she often makes as much as thirty sous a
night in her sphere of labor.

The Funambules orchestra is composed of three instruments--a big bass,
played by a tall, genial-looking man who wears a flannel shirt and a
paper collar, and has a bald head; and a piano and violin, played by
two handsome, dark-haired, romantic-looking young men, apparently
brothers. The music is excellent. The performance lasts from seven
till twelve, five hours, and includes three pieces. The first is a
farce, in which the orthodox stage papa looks over the top of a screen
in a fury at the orthodox stage-lovers, and ends the piece by joining
their hands with the orthodox "Take her, you young rascal!" The second
piece is a nautical, black-eyed-Susan sort of drama, with the genteel
young navy lieutenant who sings like a siren; the jolly old tar who
swaggers like a ship in the trough of the sea; the comic servant who
is in love with the heroine, and whose passion brings him droll
burdens of woe; and so on. Both these pieces are interspersed with
songs, duets, quartets, after the manner of the old-fashioned Dibdin
"Jolly Waterman" style of pieces, never seen on our stage now-a-days,
nor on the French stage except at minor theatres. Follows a
pantomime--_Monsieur Goosequill's Troubles_--the only pantomime of the
kind introduced in America by the Ravels that I have ever seen in
Paris, this style of entertainment having gone completely out of
fashion in France. The papa of the farce (who was also the Jack Tar of
the drama) reappears in the pantomime as Pierrot, the white-faced
clown; and tremendously funny is he. There is a weird, elastic
harlequin in a ghastly mask which he never lifts; and an amazing
notary in an astounding nose, who proves to be Monsieur Goosequill.
There is a humpback of hideous deformity and a Columbine of seraphic
lovelin