ceneshifters' exaggerated mirth, Fauchery grew white.
His lips trembled, and he was ready to flare up in anger while Mignon,
shamming good nature, was clapping him on the shoulder with such
affectionate violence as nearly to pulverize him.

"I value your health, I do!" he kept repeating. "Egad! I should be in a
pretty pickle if anything serious happened to you!"

But just then a whisper ran through their midst: "The prince! The
prince!" And everybody turned and looked at the little door which opened
out of the main body of the house. At first nothing was visible save
Bordenave's round back and beefy neck, which bobbed down and arched
up in a series of obsequious obeisances. Then the prince made his
appearance. Largely and strongly built, light of beard and rosy of hue,
he was not lacking in the kind of distinction peculiar to a sturdy man
of pleasure, the square contours of whose limbs are clearly defined by
the irreproachable cut of a frock coat. Behind him walked Count Muffat
and the Marquis de Chouard, but this particular corner of the theater
being dark, the group were lost to view amid huge moving shadows.

In order fittingly to address the son of a queen, who would someday
occupy a throne, Bordenave had assumed the tone of a man exhibiting
a bear in the street. In a voice tremulous with false emotion he kept
repeating:

"If His Highness will have the goodness to follow me--would His Highness
deign to come this way? His Highness will take care!"

The prince did not hurry in the least. On the contrary, he was greatly
interested and kept pausing in order to look at the sceneshifters'
maneuvers. A batten had just been lowered, and the group of gaslights
high up among its iron crossbars illuminated the stage with a wide beam
of light. Muffat, who had never yet been behind scenes at a theater, was
even more astonished than the rest. An uneasy feeling of mingled fear
and vague repugnance took possession of him. He looked up into the
heights above him, where more battens, the gas jets on which were
burning low, gleamed like galaxies of little bluish stars amid a chaos
of iron rods, connecting lines of all sizes, hanging stages and canvases
spread out in space, like huge cloths hung out to dry.

"Lower away!" shouted the foreman unexpectedly.

And the prince himself had to warn the count, for a canvas was
descending. They were setting the scenery for the third act, which was
the grotto on Mount Etna. Men were busy p