ch he intended for disguise.
For the rest, he had retained his own garments. No one paid
any attention to him as he trudged along beside his donkeys, an
insignificant rear guard, which he was well content to be.

They made the tour of the town, in which the activity was already
above the normal in preparation for next week's fair. At intervals
they halted, the cacophony would cease abruptly, and Polichinelle would
announce in a stentorian voice that at five o'clock that evening in the
old market, M. Binet's famous company of improvisers would perform a new
comedy in four acts entitled, "The Heartless Father."

Thus at last they came to the old market, which was the groundfloor of
the town hall, and open to the four winds by two archways on each
side of its length, and one archway on each side of its breadth. These
archways, with two exceptions, had been boarded up. Through those
two, which gave admission to what presently would be the theatre, the
ragamuffins of the town, and the niggards who were reluctant to spend
the necessary sous to obtain proper admission, might catch furtive
glimpses of the performance.

That afternoon was the most strenuous of Andre-Louis' life, unaccustomed
as he was to any sort of manual labour. It was spent in erecting and
preparing the stage at one end of the market-hall; and he began to
realize how hard-earned were to be his monthly fifteen livres. At first
there were four of them to the task--or really three, for Pantaloon did
no more than bawl directions. Stripped of their finery, Rhodomont and
Leandre assisted Andre-Louis in that carpentering. Meanwhile the other
four were at dinner with the ladies. When a half-hour or so later they
came to carry on the work, Andre-Louis and his companions went to dine
in their turn, leaving Polichinelle to direct the operations as well as
assist in them.

They crossed the square to the cheap little inn where they had taken up
their quarters. In the narrow passage Andre-Louis came face to face
with Climene, her fine feathers cast, and restored by now to her normal
appearance.

"And how do you like it?" she asked him, pertly.

He looked her in the eyes. "It has its compensations," quoth he, in that
curious cold tone of his that left one wondering whether he meant or not
what he seemed to mean.

She knit her brows. "You... you feel the need of compensations already?"

"Faith, I felt it from the beginning," said he. "It was the perception
of them