Like all his comrades, he disbands his troupe in the month of November, and takes up his winter quarters in Paris, where he has a study devoted to experiments. He must [p097] be ready to renew the campaign at Easter, to astonish the Parisians at the Fair du Trône. In his youth the conjurer worked almost alone, and for hours he would keep the public breathless with interest and wonder. For this he required great facility of speech, a mind always on the alert, and the [p098] skill to draw the eyes of the spectators in any direction he wished away from his secret manipulations. Conjuring implies a constant struggle against the malicious curiosity of the audience. “I am not strong enough now,” Delille observed to me, “to bear the strain during a succession of tricks; I was obliged to divide the performance. Besides, now, the public like that best.” [Illustration] [Illustration] The troupe consists of forty persons. It is a little difficult to realize the size of the establishment required to work these large show-theatres. A booth like that of Adrian Delille can seat 1,200 people, and it is always crowded for the Sunday performances. They cost an average of 400 francs [p100] per diem, for the principal performers receive high salaries. Clowns, acrobats, buffoons, and equilibrists, all these artists—and they are the same who appear in the hippodrome and circuses—are engaged through the agencies. The engagements are concluded for one month, but they can be cancelled at the end of a week at the wish of the proprietor. A good clown, a skilful gymnast, can earn in a _forain_ theatre like that of Delille as much as at the circus—about 2,000 francs per month. The dancers employed to pose in the _tableaux vivants_ are paid according to their beauty and skill—180, 240, or even 500 francs per month. Delille paid a still higher sum to the two pretty girls who lately posed for him as the two little combatants in Emile Bayard’s picture _An Affair of Honour_.