"Ah! quite true!... He is the one whose face always plays and never wins." A way Rochefort had, gave rise to this joke on the part of his friend Lafarge. I say gave rise to, and not _excused._ "And who is his partner?" "That is Ferdinand Langlé." "Ah! little Fleuriet's lover?" "Little Fleuriet's lover!... Hang it, you talk like a Parisian.... Who has primed you so well?" "Hang it all! Adolphe ... he does not appear to hurry himself." "You are in a hurry, then?" "Of course I am, and naturally enough: I have never seen Talma." "Ah, well, dear boy, hurry up and see him." "Why do you say that?" "Because he is _wearing out_ horribly." "What do you mean by _wearing out_?" "I mean he is getting old and growing rusty." "I see! But the papers say he has never been fresher in talent or more beautiful in facial expression." "Do you believe what the papers say?" "Oh!" "You may be a journalist yourself one day, my boy." "Well, if I am?" "Why, then, when you are, you will see how things come about." "And ...?" "And you will not believe what the papers say--that is all!" At this moment the door opened, and Adolphe poked his head in. "Be quick," he said; "if we do not hurry, we shall find the curtain raised." "Oh! it is you at last!" I darted towards Adolphe. "You have forgotten to pay," said Lafarge. "Oh! so I have.... Waiter, how much?" "One small glass, four sous; six sous of sugar, ten." I drew ten sous from my pocket and flung them on the table, and then, the lighter by fifty centimes, I rushed out of the café. "You were with Lafarge?" said Adolphe. "Yes.... What is wrong with him?" "What do you mean by what is wrong with him?" "He told me that M. de Jouy was an idiot, and Talma a Cassandra." "Poor Lafarge!" said Adolphe; "perhaps he had not dined." "Not dined! Is he reduced so low as that?" "Pretty nearly." "Ah!" I said, "that explains many things!... MM. de Jouy and Talma dine every day, and poor Lafarge cannot forgive them for it." Alas! I have since seen critics, besides Lafarge, who could not forgive those who dined. I had dined so well that I had quite as much of the spirit of indulgence in my stomach as curiosity in my mind. We went into the theatre. The hall was crowded, although it was about the eighth performance of the play. We had terrible difficulty in obtaining seats: our places were unreserved. Adolphe generously gave forty sous to the woman who showed people to their seats, and she wriggled a way in so well for us that she found us a corner in the centre of the orchestra, into which we slipped like a couple of wedges, which we must have resembled in shape and appearance. We were only just in time, as Adolphe had said. Scarcely were we seated before the curtain went up.