pressed. He looked at Mme. Giry, in her faded shawl, her
worn shoes, her old taffeta dress and dingy bonnet. It was quite
evident from the manager's attitude, that he either did not know or
could not remember having met Mme. Giry, nor even little Giry, nor even
"little Meg!" But Mme. Giry's pride was so great that the celebrated
box-keeper imagined that everybody knew her.

"Never heard of her!" the manager declared. "But that's no reason,
Mme. Giry, why I shouldn't ask you what happened last night to make you
and the inspector call in a municipal guard."

"I was just wanting to see you, sir, and talk to you about it, so that
you mightn't have the same unpleasantness as M. Debienne and M.
Poligny. They wouldn't listen to me either, at first."

"I'm not asking you about all that. I'm asking what happened last
night."

Mme. Giry turned purple with indignation. Never had she been spoken to
like that. She rose as though to go, gathering up the folds of her
skirt and waving the feathers of her dingy bonnet with dignity, but,
changing her mind, she sat down again and said, in a haughty voice:

"I'll tell you what happened. The ghost was annoyed again!"

Thereupon, as M. Richard was on the point of bursting out, M.
Moncharmin interfered and conducted the interrogatory, whence it
appeared that Mme. Giry thought it quite natural that a voice should be
heard to say that a box was taken, when there was nobody in the box.
She was unable to explain this phenomenon, which was not new to her,
except by the intervention of the ghost. Nobody could see the ghost in
his box, but everybody could hear him. She had often heard him; and
they could believe her, for she always spoke the truth. They could ask
M. Debienne and M. Poligny, and anybody who knew her; and also M.
Isidore Saack, who had had a leg broken by the ghost!

"Indeed!" said Moncharmin, interrupting her. "Did the ghost break poor
Isidore Saack's leg?"

Mme. Giry opened her eyes with astonishment at such ignorance.
However, she consented to enlighten those two poor innocents. The
thing had happened in M. Debienne and M. Poligny's time, also in Box
Five and also during a performance of FAUST. Mme. Giry coughed,
cleared her throat--it sounded as though she were preparing to sing the
whole of Gounod's score--and began:

"It was like this, sir. That night, M. Maniera and his lady, the
jewelers in the Rue Mogador, were sitting in the front of the box, with