this labor of converting the
dining-room into an auditory, they found an attentive observer in the
landlord's daughter who left her pans, plates and platters to watch
these preparations with round-eyed admiration. To her that temporary
stage was surrounded by glamour and romance; a world remote from cook,
scullion and maid of all work, and peopled with well-born dames,
courtly ladies and exalted princesses.

Possibly interested in what seemed an incomprehensible venture--for
how could the manager's coffers be replenished by free
performances?--Saint-Prosper that afternoon reminded Barnes he had
returned from the village without fulfilling his errand.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Barnes, his face wrinkling in perplexity. "What
have I been thinking about? I don't see how I can go now. Hawkes or
O'Flariaty can't be spared, what with lamps to polish and costumes to
get in order! Hum!" he mused dubiously.

"If I can be of any use, command me," said the soldier, unexpectedly.

"You!"--exclaimed the manager. "I could not think--"

"Oh, it's a notable occupation," said the other with a satirical
smile. "Was it not the bill-posters who caused the downfall of the
French dynasty?" he added.

"In that case," laughed Barnes, with a sigh of relief, "go ahead and
spread the inflammable dodgers! Paste them everywhere, except on the
tombstones in the graveyard."

Conspicuously before the postoffice, grocery store, on the town pump
and the fence of the village church, some time later, the soldier
accordingly nailed the posters, followed by an inquisitive group, who
read the following announcement: "Tuesday, 'The Honeymoon'; Wednesday,
'The School for Scandal'; Thursday, 'The Stranger,' with diverting
specialties; Friday, 'Romeo and Juliet'; Saturday, 'Hamlet,' with a
Jig by Kate Duran. At the Travelers' Friend. Entrance Free."

"They're going to play after all," commented the blacksmith's wife.

"I don't see much harm in 'Hamlet,'" said the supervisor's yokemate.
"It certainly ain't frivolous."

"Let's go to 'The Honeymoon'?" suggested an amorous carl to his
slip-slop Sal.

"Go 'long!" she retorted with barn-yard bashfulness.

"Did you ever see 'The School for Scandal'?" asked the smithy's good
wife.

"Once," confessed the town official's faded consort, her worn face
lighting dreamily. "It was on our wedding trip to New York. Silas
warn't so strict then."

Amid chit-chat, so diverting, Saint-Prosper finished "posting" the
tow