acting has always been done by men. Sadi's
husband performs also, and in a dreadfully realistic manner. He
stabbed himself with a sword, and with such vigor that real blood, so
It looked, ran down in bucketfuls over the stage, and he groaned and
writhed in his death-throes.

* * * * *

Paris would not be Paris if it did not keep us on the _qui-vive_.
Every kind of celebrity from everywhere is duly lionized. Paris, never
Republican at heart, still loves royalty in any shape, and at the
merest specimen of it the Parisians are down on their knees.

* * * * *

We have had the heavy-eyed Krueger straight from the Transvaal. Paris
made a great fuss over him, but he took his lionization very calmly.
At the Opera people cheered and waved their handkerchiefs. He came
forward to the edge of the _ioge_, bowed stiffly, and looked intensely
bored. The _protocole_ furnishes the same program for each lion. A
dinner at the Elysees, a promenade, a gala opera, _et voila_.

Fritjof Nansen, the blond and gentle Norwegian explorer, has just
finished his visit here. As a Scandinavian friend he came for a cup of
tea and made himself most agreeable, and was, unlike other
celebrities, willing to be drawn out. He told us of some of his most
exciting adventures. Starvation and exposure of all sorts belong to
explorers.

No one would think, to look at the mild and blue-eyed Nansen, that he
had gone through so many harrowing experiences.

"The worst were," he said, "losing my dogs. I loved them all. To see
them die from want of food and other sufferings broke my heart."

I am sure that what he said was true, he looked so kind and good.

Among other personages of distinction Paris greets is the Shah of
Persia. The Elysees gave him the traditional gala dinner, to which the
diplomats were invited. The ballroom was arranged as a winter-garden,
with a stage put at the end of it. The ballet from the Opera danced
and played an exquisite pantomime, but the august guest sat sullen and
morose, hardly lifting his Oriental eyes. People were brought up to
him to be introduced, but he did not condescend to favor them with
more than a guttural muttering--probably his private opinion, meant
only for his suite. He merely glanced at us and looked away, as if too
much bored for words. M. Loubet stood on one side, and Madame Loubet
sat in a _fauteuil_ next to him, but he had nothing to say to eith