His fury made him take his hat off and put it on again fifteen times in as many minutes, and his extremely smooth hair stood on end with this mad gallop of his head-gear. Although I had certainly arrived at the age of discretion, I delighted in my wicked mischievousness, which I always regretted after, but which I was always ready to recommence; and even now, after all the days, weeks, months, and years that I have lived since then, it still gives me infinite pleasure to play a joke on any one. All the same, life at the Comédie began to affect my nerves. I wanted to play Camille in _On ne badine pas avec l’amour_: the _rôle_ was given to Croizette. I wanted to play Célimène: that _rôle_ was Croizette’s. Perrin was very partial to Croizette. He admired her, and as she was very ambitious, she was most thoughtful and docile, which charmed the authoritative old man. She always obtained everything she wanted, and as Sophie Croizette was frank and straightforward, she often said to me when I was grumbling, “Do as I do; be more yielding. You pass your time in rebelling; I appear to be doing everything that Perrin wants me to do, but in reality I make him do all I want him to. Try the same thing.” I accordingly screwed up my courage and went up to see Perrin. He nearly always said to me when we met, “Ah, how do you do, Mademoiselle Revolt? Are you calm to-day?” “Yes, very calm,” I replied; “but be amiable and grant me what I am going to ask you.” I tried to be charming, and spoke in my prettiest way. He almost purred with satisfaction, and was witty (this was no effort to him, as he was naturally so), and we got on very well together for a quarter of an hour. I then made my petition: “Let me play Camille in _On ne badine pas avec l’amour_”. “That’s impossible, my dear child,” he replied; “Croizette is playing it.” “Well then, we’ll both play it; we’ll take it in turns.” “But Mademoiselle Croizette wouldn’t like that.” “I’ve spoken to her about it, and she would not mind it.” “You ought not to have spoken to her about it.” “Why not?” “Because the management does the casting, not the artistes.” He didn’t purr any more, he only growled. As for me, I was in a fury, and a few minutes later I went out of the room, banging the door after me.