ws the curtains, gazes on the master and mistress; he stands
immovable, his arms hanging by his side, his legs exactly straight;
he listens, he seeks to read their faces, and then he adds:--That
is my pantomime, very much the same as that of all flatterers,
courtiers, valets, and beggars.

The buffooneries of this man, the stories of the abbe Galiani, the
extravagances of Rabelais, have sometimes thrown me into profound
reveries. They are three stores whence I have provided myself with
ridiculous masks that I place on the faces of the gravest
personages, and I see Pantaloon in a prelate, a satyr in a
president, a pig in a monk, an ostrich in a minister, a goose in
his first clerk.]

* * * * *

_I._--But according to your account, I said to my man, there are
plenty of beggars in the world, and yet I know nobody who is not
acquainted with some of the steps of your dance.

_He._--You are right. In a whole kingdom there is only one man who
walks, and that is the sovereign.

_I._--The sovereign? There is something to be said on that. For do
you suppose that one may not from time to time find even by the
side of him, a dainty foot, a pretty neck, a bewitching nose, that
makes him execute his pantomime. Whoever has need of another is
indigent, and assumes a posture. The king postures before his
mistress, and before God he treads his pantomimic measure. The
minister dances the step of courtier, flatterer, valet, and beggar
before his king. The crowd of the ambitious cut a hundred capers,
each viler than the rest, before the minister. The abbe, with his
bands and long cloak, postures at least once a week before the
patron of livings. On my word, what you call the pantomime of
beggars is only the whole huge bustle of the earth....

_He._--But let us bethink ourselves what o'clock it is, for I must
go to the opera.

_I._--What is going on?

_He._--Dauvergne's _Trocqueurs_. There are some tolerable things in
the music; the only pity is that he has not been the first to say
them. Among those dead, there are always some to dismay the living.
What would you have? _Quisque suos patimur manes._ But it is
half-past five, I hear the bell ringing my vespers. Good day, my
philosopher; always the same, am I not?