?" Binet asked him once in the course of that repast and
during a pause in the conversation.

"It happens that I have," said he. "I think it is Parvissimus."

"Parvissimus?" quoth Binet. "Is that a family name?"

"In such a company, where only the leader enjoys the privilege of a
family name, the like would be unbecoming its least member. So I take
the name that best becomes in me. And I think it is Parvissimus--the very
least."

Binet was amused. It was droll; it showed a ready fancy. Oh, to be sure,
they must get to work together on those scenarios.

"I shall prefer it to carpentering," said Andre-Louis. Nevertheless he
had to go back to it that afternoon, and to labour strenuously until
four o'clock, when at last the autocratic Binet announced himself
satisfied with the preparations, and proceeded, again with the help of
Andre-Louis, to prepare the lights, which were supplied partly by tallow
candles and partly by lamps burning fish-oil.

At five o'clock that evening the three knocks were sounded, and the
curtain rose on "The Heartless Father."

Among the duties inherited by Andre-Louis from the departed Felicien
whom he replaced, was that of doorkeeper. This duty he discharged
dressed in a Polichinelle costume, and wearing a pasteboard nose. It was
an arrangement mutually agreeable to M. Binet and himself. M. Binet--who
had taken the further precaution of retaining Andre-Louis' own
garments--was thereby protected against the risk of his latest recruit
absconding with the takings. Andre-Louis, without illusions on the score
of Pantaloon's real object, agreed to it willingly enough, since it
protected him from the chance of recognition by any acquaintance who
might possibly be in Guichen.

The performance was in every sense unexciting; the audience meagre and
unenthusiastic. The benches provided in the front half of the market
contained some twenty-seven persons: eleven at twenty sous a head and
sixteen at twelve. Behind these stood a rabble of some thirty others at
six sous apiece. Thus the gross takings were two louis, ten livres, and
two sous. By the time M. Binet had paid for the use of the market, his
lights, and the expenses of his company at the inn over Sunday, there
was not likely to be very much left towards the wages of his players. It
is not surprising, therefore, that M. Binet's bonhomie should have been
a trifle overcast that evening.

"And what do you think of it?" he asked Andre-Louis, as the