reat eyes; giving them an expression at
once cunning and authoritative, the veritable expression of the eye of
the master.

At last, about midnight, the last Montrouge omnibus bore away the
tyrannical father-in-law, and Delobelle was able to speak.

"Let us first look at the prospectus," he said, preferring not to attack
the question of figures at once; and with his eyeglasses on his nose, he
began, in a declamatory tone, always upon the stage: "When one considers
coolly the decrepitude which dramatic art has reached in France, when
one measures the distance that separates the stage of Moliere--"

There were several pages like that. Risler listened, puffing at his
pipe, afraid to stir, for the reader looked at him every moment over his
eyeglasses, to watch the effect of his phrases. Unfortunately, right
in the middle of the prospectus, the cafe closed. The lights were
extinguished; they must go.--And the estimates?--It was agreed that they
should read them as they walked along. They stopped at every gaslight.
The actor displayed his figures. So much for the hall, so much for
the lighting, so much for poor-rates, so much for the actors. On that
question of the actors he was firm.

"The best point about the affair," he said, "is that we shall have
no leading man to pay. Our leading man will be Bibi." (When Delobelle
mentioned himself, he commonly called himself Bibi.) "A leading man is
paid twenty thousand francs, and as we have none to pay, it's just as
if you put twenty thousand francs in your pocket. Tell me, isn't that
true?"

Risler did not reply. He had the constrained manner, the wandering eyes
of the man whose thoughts are elsewhere. The reading of the estimates
being concluded, Delobelle, dismayed to find that they were drawing
near the corner of the Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes, put the question
squarely. Would Risler advance the money, yes or no?

"Well!--no," said Risler, inspired by heroic courage, which he owed
principally to the proximity of the factory and to the thought that the
welfare of his family was at stake.

Delobelle was astounded. He had believed that the business was as good
as done, and he stared at his companion, intensely agitated, his eyes as
big as saucers, and rolling his papers in his hand.

"No," Risler continued, "I can't do what you ask, for this reason."

Thereupon the worthy man, slowly, with his usual heaviness of speech,
explained that he was not rich. Although a partner