gathered your troupe together again, and have a comedy
played here which is of a peculiar and by no means harmless character.

HOST. If it were harmful, M. le Commissaire, I should not have my
audience--the most aristocratic audience in Paris, I'm in a position to
say. The Vicomte de Nogeant is my daily customer. The Marquis de Lansac
often comes, and the Duc de Cadignan, M. le Commissaire, is the most
enthusiastic admirer of my leading actor, the celebrated Henri Baston.

COMMISSAIRE. As well as of the art or arts of your actresses.

HOST. When you get to know my little actresses, M. le Commissaire, you
won't blame anybody in the whole world for that.

COMMISSAIRE. Enough. The authorities have been informed that the
entertainments which your--what shall I say--?

HOST. The word "artists" ought to suffice.

COMMISSAIRE. I will decide on the word "subjects"--that the
entertainments which your subjects provide transgress in every sense
the limits the laws allow. Speeches are said to be delivered by
your--what shall I say?--by your artist-criminals which--what does my
information say?--(he reads from a notebook, as he had been doing
previously) which are calculated to produce not only an immoral
effect, which would bother us but little, but a highly seditious
effect--a matter to which the authorities absolutely cannot be
indifferent, at a time so agitated as the one in which we live.

HOST. M. le Commissaire, I can only answer that accusation by politely
inviting you to see the thing just once for yourself. You will observe
that nothing of a seditious nature takes place here, if only because my
audience will not permit itself to be made seditious. There is simply a
theatrical performance here, that is all.

COMMISSAIRE. I naturally cannot accept your invitation, but I will stay
here by virtue of my office.

HOST. I think I can promise you a first-class entertainment, M. le
Commissaire; but I will take the liberty of advising you to doff your
official garb and to appear here in civilian clothes. If people
actually saw a Commissaire in uniform here, both the spontaneity of my
artists and the mood of my audience would suffer thereby.

COMMISSAIRE. You are right, M. Prosper; I will go away and come back as
an elegant young man.

HOST. You will have no difficulty about that, M. le Commissaire. You
would be welcomed here even as a vagabond--that would not excite
attention--but not as a Commissaire.

COMMISSAIRE. Go