"You might put '_Air. J'en guette un pet.i.t de mon age_,'" suggested Rueille.

"Does that go to it?"

"What do you mean by 'does it go to it?'"

"Why, that air."

"I don't know. I don't even know what the air is."

"Then why do you suggest that we should take it?"

"Oh! because I often see things to that air: '_J'en guette un pet.i.t de mon age._' I just remembered seeing it, and there are lots of couplets that are put to it."

"But the poet's lines are longer than that," remarked Bijou, "especially the second one. No--one could never sing them to that air--nor to any other."

"Ah, yes!--I did not think of that."

"Fortunately, Bijou thinks of everything," put in Pierrot, with pride.

"We'll find an air for it presently," said Jean. "Let's go on; do let's go on, or we never shall finish it. Who's on the stage at present?"

And then, as M. de Rueille was biting the end of his pen and watching Bijou, so that he did not appear to have heard, Blaye exclaimed:

"Paul, are you there? or have you gone out for a time?"

"I am there."

"Oh, very well! then will you have the kindness to tell me which of the characters are at present on the scene?"

"Wait a minute! I'll just look."

"What?" exclaimed Bijou, "do you mean to say you have to look before you can tell us?"

"Well, you do not imagine, I presume, that I know by heart all the insane things that each of you has been pleased to dictate to me."

"I know them all anyhow," and then, turning towards Jean de Blaye, she answered his question. "We have on the scene at present, Venus, the Poet, Thomas Vireloque, and the Opportunist, and we said yesterday that after the introduction of the Poet to Venus, we would let Madame de Stael come in."

"Very well, we will let her enter at once."

"Have you found anyone for Madame de Stael?" asked Rueille; "up to the present no one has wanted to act her part."

"No," said Bijou; "just now I asked Madame de Juzencourt again, but she refuses energetically; and if Bertrade refuses too--"

"Bertrade refuses absolutely," replied the young wife, very gently.

"It isn't nice of you."

"Is Madame de Stael indispensable?" asked Uncle Jonzac.

"Quite indispensable," answered Bijou, emphatically. "We must absolutely find some way of--" And then suddenly breaking off, as a new idea struck her, she exclaimed gaily: "Why, Henry can take it--Madame de Stael's _role_; he has scarcely any moustache."

"I?" cried Bracieux. "_I_ act Madame de Stael?"

"She was rather masculine; it will do very well."

"But, good heavens!--I am not going to appear before people I know arrayed in a low-necked dress, a turban, and all padded up--why, it would be frightful!"

"Not at all! Oh, come now--you don't want pressing, I hope?"

"And you are not going to spoil the whole thing by being disobliging over it," added Pierrot, with a virtuous air.

"Disobliging?" exclaimed Henry, turning towards him; "it is very evident that you are not in my place. By the bye, though, you might very well be in my place;" and then seeing that Pierrot looked horror-stricken, he continued: "Why shouldn't you take it instead of me--you have less moustache even than I have!"

"Yes, but I am too scraggy," declared Pierrot cunningly. "Madame de Stael was rather a stout-looking woman."

"Scraggy? you, the athlete!"

Jean de Blaye knocked the floor with a billiard-cue for silence.

"We will think about who is to act Madame de Stael when we have found out what she has to say--Well, then, she enters--Are you not going to write, Paul?"

"What do you want me to write?"

"Well, just write: '_Madame de Stael enters by_--' Yes, but that's the point--by which door does she enter?"

"I have put '_from the back of stage._' Whenever you don't tell me how they come in, I always put '_from the back of stage._'"

"All right! Then we will leave '_from the back of the stage._'"

"_Madame de Stael (to Thomas Vireloque)_: 'I am Madame de Stael.'

_Thomas Vireloque_: 'Beg pardon?'

_Madame de Stael_: 'I am Madame de Stael.'

_Venus_: 'What have you to tell us?'

_The Opportunist_: 'It is very curious--I took you for a Turk.'

_The Poet_: 'And I--'"

"Wait a minute!" said M. de Rueille, "I've made a mistake."

"How could you?"

"How could I? The same way we generally do make mistakes, of course--I wasn't thinking."