play aright. I believe it
would be impossible to imagine two worse plays; but, as Brid Oison says,
'These are things that one admits only to himself'; it is always
disagreeable to be informed of one's stupidity by an ignorant audience
that shouts after you like a pack of hounds after a hare. In spite of my
pretension of being the least susceptible regarding an author's vanity of
all the writers in Paris, it is perfectly impossible to be indifferent to
such a thing--a hiss is a hiss. However, vanity aside, there was a
question of money which, as I have a bad habit of spending regularly my
capital as well as my income, was not without its importance. It meant,
according to my calculation, some sixty thousand francs cut off from my
resources, and my trip to the East was indefinitely postponed.

"They say, with truth, that misfortunes never come singly. You know
Melanie, whom I prevented from making her debut at the Vaudeville? By
taking her away from all society, lodging her in a comfortable manner and
obliging her to work, I rendered her a valuable service. She was a good
girl, and, aside from her love for the theatre and a certain indolence
that was not without charm, I did not find any fault in her and grew more
attached to her every day. Sometimes after spending long hours with her,
a fancy for a retired life and domestic happiness would seize me.
Gentlemen with brains are privileged to commit foolish acts at times, and
I really do not know what I might have ended in doing, had I not been
preserved from the danger in an unexpected manner.

"One evening, when I arrived at Melanie's, I found the bird had flown.
That great ninny of a Ferussac, whom I never had suspected, and had
introduced to her myself, had turned her head by making capital out of
her love for the stage. As he was about to leave for Belgium, he
persuaded her to go there and dethrone Mademoiselle Prevost. I have since
learned that a Brussels banker revenged me by taking this Helene of the
stage away from Ferussac. Now she is launched and can fly with her own
wings upon the great highway of bravos, flowers, guineas--"

"And wreck and ruin," added Marillac. "Here's to her health!"

"This triple disappointment of pride, money, and heart did not cause, I
hope you will believe me, the deep state of melancholy into which I soon
fell; but the malady manifested itself upon this occasion, for it had
been lurking about me for a long time, as the dormant pain of a