strident or hysterical;
the laugh did not ring true, but had the sound of cracked crystal. No
one stirred. This parody of death affected even these hardened
spectators.

"Oh, well, my friends, there is a cadaver belonging to the establishment
which we can use. It is a pity! You may readily understand that we do
not take the dead for companions."

As no one among the spectators would enter the coffin, the manager, with
a gesture, ordered one of the supernumeraries of the cabaret to enter;
from an open door the figurant glided across the stage and entered the
coffin, standing upright. The manager wrapped him about with a shroud,
leaving only the pale face of the pretended dead man exposed above this
whiteness. The man smiled.

"He laughs, Messieurs, he laughs still!" said the manager. "You will
soon see him pay for that laugh. '_Rome rit et mourut!_' as Bossuet
said."

Some of the audience shouted applause to this quotation from a famous
author. Bernardet did not listen; he was studying from a corner of his
eye his neighbor's face. The man gazed with a sort of fascination at
this fantastic performance which was taking place before him. He
frowned, he bit his lips; his eyes were almost ferocious in expression.
The figurant in the coffin continued to laugh.

"Look! look keenly!" went on the manager, "you will see your brother
dematerialize after becoming changed in color. The flesh will disappear
and you will see his skeleton. Think, think, my brothers, this is the
fate which awaits you, perhaps, soon, on going away from here; think of
the various illnesses and deaths by accidents which await you!
Contemplate the magic spectacle offered by the Cabaret du Squelette and
remember that you are dust and that to dust you must return! Make,
wisely, this reflection, which the intoxicated man made to another man
in like condition, but asleep. 'And that is how I shall be on Sunday!'
While waiting, my brothers and sisters, for nothingness, look at the
dematerialization of your contemporary if you please!"

The play of lights, while the man was talking, began to throw a greenish
pallor and to make spots at first transparent upon the orbits of the
eyes, then, little by little, the spots seemed to grow stronger, to
blacken, to enlarge. The features, lightly picked out, appeared to
change gradually, to take on gray and confused tints, to slowly
disappear as under a veil, a damp vapor which covered, devoured that
face, now unrecogn