"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." "That's about it," said Bijou. "I don't know what's the matter with you, but you certainly are absent-minded this evening." Without answering, Rueille drew his quill-pen across the paper, bearing on heavily, so that the pen gave a plaintive screech. "What are you doing now?" asked Jean. "I am crossing it out." "What are you crossing out?" "Well, I had written the same sentences over four times each." Bijou and Blaye got up to examine M. de Rueille's work, and the young girl read out: "_Madame de Stael_: 'I am Madame de Stael.' _Thomas Vireloque_: 'Beg pardon?' _Madame de Stael_; 'I am Madame de Stael.' _Thomas Vireloque_: 'Beg pardon?' _Madame de Stael_; 'I am Madame de Stael.'" "Oh, yes," said Bijou, "you must cross that out!"