r or so I will examine your papers at the office. But now go; I am
busy."

"Measuring butter!" thought Berthelini. "O France, and it is for this
that we made '93!"

The preparations were soon made; the bills posted, programmes laid on
the dinner-table of every hotel in the town, and a stage erected at one
end of the Cafe of the Triumphs of the Plough; but when Leon returned to
the office, the Commissary was once more abroad.

"He is like Madame Benoiton," thought Leon: "Fichu Commissaire!"

And just then he met the man face to face.

"Here, sir," said he, "are my papers. Will you be pleased to verify?"

But the Commissary was now intent upon dinner.

"No use," he replied, "no use; I am busy; I am quite satisfied. Give
your entertainment."

And he hurried on.

"Fichu Commissaire!" thought Leon.

CHAPTER II

The audience was pretty large; and the proprietor of the cafe made a
good thing of it in beer. But the Berthelinis exerted themselves in
vain.

Leon was radiant in velveteen; he had a rakish way of smoking a
cigarette between his songs that was worth money in itself; he
underlined his comic points so that the dullest numskull in
Castel-le-Gachis had a notion when to laugh; and he handled his guitar
in a manner worthy of himself. Indeed, his play with that instrument was
as good as a whole romantic drama; it was so dashing, so florid, and so
cavalier.

Elvira, on the other hand, sang her patriotic and romantic songs with
more than usual expression; her voice had charm and plangency; and as
Leon looked at her, in her low-bodied maroon dress, with her arms bare
to the shoulder, and a red flower set provocatively in her corset, he
repeated to himself for the many hundredth time that she was one of the
loveliest creatures in the world of women.

Alas! when she went round with the tambourine, the golden youth of
Castel-le-Gachis turned from her coldly. Here and there a single
halfpenny was forthcoming; the net result of a collection never exceeded
half a franc; and the Maire himself, after seven different applications,
had contributed exactly twopence. A certain chill began to settle upon
the artists themselves; it seemed as if they were singing to slugs;
Apollo himself might have lost heart with such an audience. The
Berthelinis struggled against the impression; they put their back into
their work, they sang louder and louder, the guitar twanged like a
living thing; and at last Leon arose in his