tand and discover him, they would like him all the better in the
end.

True to that resolve, he now played his part as the friend and hired
ally of the lovesick Leandre, on whose behalf he came for news of
Climene, seizing the opportunity to further his own amour with Columbine
and his designs upon the money-bags of Pantaloon. Also he had taken
certain liberties with the traditional costume of Scaramouche; he had
caused the black doublet and breeches to be slashed with red, and the
doublet to be cut more to a peak, a la Henri III. The conventional black
velvet cap he had replaced by a conical hat with a turned-up brim, and a
tuft of feathers on the left, and he had discarded the guitar.

M. Binet listened desperately for the roar of laughter that usually
greeted the entrance of Scaramouche, and his dismay increased when
it did not come. And then he became conscious of something alarmingly
unusual in Scaramouche's manner. The sibilant foreign accent was there,
but none of the broad boisterousness their audiences had loved.

He wrung his hands in despair. "It is all over!" he said. "The fellow
has ruined us! It serves me right for being a fool, and allowing him to
take control of everything!"

But he was profoundly mistaken. He began to have an inkling of this when
presently himself he took the stage, and found the public attentive,
remarked a grin of quiet appreciation on every upturned face. It was
not, however, until the thunders of applause greeted the fall of the
curtain on the first act that he felt quite sure they would be allowed
to escape with their lives.

Had the part of Pantaloon in "Les Fourberies" been other than that of
a blundering, timid old idiot, Binet would have ruined it by his
apprehensions. As it was, those very apprehensions, magnifying as they
did the hesitancy and bewilderment that were the essence of his part,
contributed to the success. And a success it proved that more than
justified all the heralding of which Scaramouche had been guilty.

For Scaramouche himself this success was not confined to the public. At
the end of the play a great reception awaited him from his companions
assembled in the green-room of the theatre. His talent, resource, and
energy had raised them in a few weeks from a pack of vagrant mountebanks
to a self-respecting company of first-rate players. They acknowledged it
generously in a speech entrusted to Polichinelle, adding the tribute to
his genius that, as they h