he young leading actress; dispersed a dozen assassins with his sword;
addressed to the stars--that is to say, the spectators in the upper
gallery--a long speech of eighty or a hundred lines, and gathered up two
lost children under the folds of his cloak.

A "fine leading part" should also, during the rest of the piece,
accomplish a certain number of sublime acts, address the multitude from
the top of a staircase, insult a powerful monarch to his face, dash into
the midst of a conflagration--always in the long-topped boots. The ideal
part would be for him to discover America, like Christopher Columbus;
win pitched battles, like Bonaparte, or some other equally senseless
thing; but the essential point is, never to leave the stage and to talk
all the time--the work, in reality, should be a monologue in five acts.

This role of an old workman, offered to Jocquelet by Amedee, obtained
only a grimace of displeasure from the actor. However, it ended by
his being reconciled to the part, studying it, and, to use his own
expression, "racking his brains over it," until one day he ran to
Violette's, all excited, exclaiming:

"I have the right idea of my old man now! I will dress him in a
tricot waistcoat with ragged sleeves and dirty blue overalls. He is an
apprentice, is he not? A fellow with a beard! Very well! in the great
scene where they tell him that his son is a thief and he defies the
whole of the workmen, he struggles and his clothes are torn open,
showing a hairy chest. I am not hairy, but I will make myself so--does
that fill the bill? You will see the effect."

While reserving the right to dissuade Jocquelet from making himself
up in this way, Amedee carried his manuscript to the director of the
Theatre Francais, who asked a little time to look it over, and also
promised the young poet that he would read it aloud to the committee.

Amedee is very anxious, although Maurice Roger, to whom he has read the
piece, act by act, predicts an enthusiastic acceptance.

The handsome Maurice has been installed for more than a year in a studio
on the Rue d'Assas and leads a jolly, free life there. Does he work?
Sometimes; by fits and starts. And although he abandons his sketches
at the first attack of idleness, there is a charm about these sketches,
suspended upon the wall; and he will some day show his talent. One
of his greatest pleasures is to see pass before him all his beautiful
models, at ten francs an hour. With palette i