and
made his exit, and then a gentleman appeared, and disappeared behind the
screen, chattering at an incredible rate in Italian. Kissing was heard
behind the screen. Instantly the waiter served a dinner, chattering
always behind the screen with his customers at an incredible rate in
Italian. Then another gentleman appeared, and no sooner had he
disappeared behind the screen, chattering at an incredible rate in
Italian, than a policeman appeared, and he too, chattering at an
incredible rate in Italian, disappeared behind the screen. A fearsome
altercation was now developing behind the screen in the tongue of Dante,
and from time to time one or other of the characters--the lady, the
policeman, the first or second gentleman, the waiter--came from cover
into view of the audience, and harangued the rest at an incredible rate
in Italian. Then a disaster happened behind the screen: a table was
upset, to an accompaniment of yells; and the curtain fell rapidly, amid
loud applause, to rise again with equal rapidity on the spectacle of a
bowing and smiling little man in ordinary evening dress.

This singular and enigmatic drama disconcerted Henry.

'What is it?' he whispered.

'Pauletti,' said Geraldine, rather surprised at the question.

He gathered from her tone that Pauletti was a personage of some
importance, and, consulting the programme, read: 'Pauletti, the
world-renowned quick-change artiste.' Then he figuratively kicked
himself, like a man kicks himself figuratively in bed when he wakes up
in the middle of the night and sees the point of what has hitherto
appeared to be rather less than a joke.

'He's very good,' said Henry, as the excellence of Pauletti became more
and more clear to him.

'He gets a hundred a week,' said Geraldine.

When Pauletti had performed two other violent dramas, and dressed and
undressed himself thirty-nine times in twenty minutes, he gave way to
his fellow-countryman Toscato. Toscato began gently with a little
prestidigitation, picking five-pound notes out of the air, and
simplicities of that kind. He then borrowed a handkerchief, produced an
orange out of the handkerchief, a vegetable-marrow out of the orange, a
gibus hat out of the vegetable-marrow, a live sucking-pig out of the
gibus hat, five hundred yards of coloured paper out of the sucking-pig,
a Union-jack twelve feet by ten out of the bunch of paper, and a
wardrobe with real doors and full of ladies' dresses out of the
Union-j