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“I have the honour,” he asked, “of meeting M. le Commissaire?”

The Commissary was affected by the nobility of his address. He excelled Leon in the depth if not in the airy grace of his salutation.

“The honour,” said he, “is mine!”

“I am,” continued the strolling-player, “I am, sir, an artist, and I have permitted myself to interrupt you on an affair of business. To-night I give a trifling musical entertainment at the Cafe of the Triumphs of the Plough – permit me to offer you this little programme – and I have come to ask you for the necessary authorisation.”

At the word “artist,” the Commissary had replaced his hat with the air of a person who, having condescended too far, should suddenly remember the duties of his rank.

“Go, go,” said he, “I am busy – I am measuring butter.”

“Heathen Jew!” thought Leon. “Permit me, sir,” he resumed aloud. “I have gone six times already – “

“Put up your bills if you choose,” interrupted the Commissary. “In an hour or so I will examine your papers at the office. But now go; I am busy.”

“Measuring butter!” thought Berthelini. “Oh, France, and it is for this that we made ’93!”

The preparations were soon made; the bills posted, programmes laid on the dinner-table of every hotel in the town, and a stage erected at one end of the Cafe of the Triumphs of the Plough; but when Leon returned to the office, the Commissary was once more abroad.

“He is like Madame Benoiton,” thought Leon, “Fichu Commissaire!”

And just then he met the man face to face.

“Here, sir,” said he, “are my papers. Will you be pleased to verify?”

But the Commissary was now intent upon dinner.

“No use,” he replied, “no use; I am busy; I am quite satisfied. Give your entertainment.”

And he hurried on.

“Fichu Commissaire!” thought Leon.

CHAPTER II

The audience was pretty large; and the proprietor of the cafe made a good thing of it in beer. But the Berthelinis exerted themselves in vain.

Leon was radiant in velveteen; he had a rakish way of smoking a cigarette between his songs that was worth money in itself; he underlined his comic points, so that the dullest numskull in Castel-le-Gachis had a notion when to laugh; and he handled his guitar in a manner worthy of himself. Indeed his play with that instrument was as good as a whole romantic drama; it was so dashing, so florid, and so cavalier.

Elvira, on the other hand, sang her patriotic and romantic songs with more than usual expression; her voice had charm and plangency; and as Leon looked at her, in her low-bodied maroon dress, with her arms bare to the shoulder, and a red flower set provocatively in her corset, he repeated to himself for the many hundredth time that she was one of the loveliest creatures in the world of women.

Alas! when she went round with the tambourine, the golden youth of Castel-le-Gachis turned from her coldly. Here and there a single halfpenny was forthcoming; the net result of a collection never exceeded half a franc; and the Maire himself, after seven different applications, had contributed exactly twopence. A certain chill began to settle upon the artists themselves; it seemed as if they were singing to slugs; Apollo himself might have lost heart with such an audience. The Berthelinis struggled against the impression; they put their back into their work, they sang loud and louder, the guitar twanged like a living thing; and at last Leon arose in his might, and burst with inimitable conviction into his great song, “Y a des honnetes gens partout!” Never had he given more proof of his artistic mastery; it was his intimate, indefeasible conviction that Castel-le-Gachis formed an exception to the law he was now lyrically proclaiming, and was peopled exclusively by thieves and bullies; and yet, as I say, he flung it down like a challenge, he trolled it forth like an article of faith; and his face so beamed the while that you would have thought he must make converts of the benches.