piece, the two large lamps, the
what-not; the easy chairs grouped in a circle had an air of joining in
this illusion, and seemed more brilliant by reason of this unaccustomed
throng.

"So your play is finished?"

"Finished, M. Joyeuse, and I hope to read it to you one of these
evenings."

"Oh, yes, M. Andre. Oh, yes," said all the girls in chorus.

Their neighbour was in the habit of writing for the stage, and no one
here doubted of his success. Photography, in any case, promised fewer
profits. Clients were very rare, passers-by little disposed to business.
To keep his hand in and to save his new apparatus from rusting, M. Andre
was accustomed to practise anew on the family of his friends on
each succeeding Sunday. They lent themselves to his experiments
with unequalled long-suffering; the prosperity of this suburban
photographer's business was for them all an affair of _amour propre_,
and awakened, even in the girls, that touching confraternity of feeling
which draws together the destinies of people as insignificant in
importance as sparrows on a roof. Andre Maranne, with the inexhaustible
resources of his great brow full of illusion, used to explain without
bitterness the indifference of the public. Sometimes the season was
unfavourable, or, again, people were complaining of the bad state of
business generally, and he would always end with the same consoling
reflection, "When _Revolt_ is produced!" That was the title of his play.

"It is surprising all the same," said the fourth of M. Joyeuse's
daughters, twelve years old, with her hair in a pigtail, "it is
surprising that with such a good balcony so little business should
result."

"And, if he were established on the Boulevard des Italiens," remarks M.
Joyeuse thoughtfully, and he is launched forth!--riding his chimera
till it is brought to the ground suddenly with a gesture and these words
uttered sadly: "Closed on account of bankruptcy." In the space of a
moment the terrible visionary has just installed his friend in splendid
quarters on the Boulevard, where he gains enormous sums of money, at the
same time, however, increasing his expenditure to so disproportionate an
extent that a fearful failure in a few months engulfs both photographer
and his photography. They laugh heartily when he gives this explanation;
but all agree that the Rue Saint-Ferdinand, although less brilliant, is
much more to be depended upon than the Boulevard des Italiens. Besides,
it h