All the people present had risen from their seats, were leaning over the gallery, and were almost half out of the boxes. I seemed to be at the end of an immense funnel with everybody gazing at me from all sides. "Put him out! put him out!" cried those who did not even know what the commotion was about, but who calculated that one person less would mean room for one more. I was debating what course to take, from the depths of my funnel, when a well-dressed man broke through the crowd, which deferentially opened a way for him, and he asked me to go out. "Why am I to go out?" I asked in great surprise. "Because you are disturbing the performance." "What! I am disturbing the play?... The play has not begun yet." "Well, you are disturbing the audience." "Really, monsieur!" "Follow me." I remembered the affair that my father, at about my age, had had with a musketeer at la Montansier, and although I knew that the constabulary was dissolved, I expected I was in for something of the same sort. So I followed without making any resistance, in the midst of the cheers of the audience, who testified their satisfaction at the justice that was being dealt out to me. My guide led me into the corridor, from the corridor to the office, and from the office into the street. When in the street he said, "There! don't do it again." And he returned to the theatre. I saw that I had got off very cheaply, since my father had kept his warder attached to him for a whole week, whilst I had only been in custody for five minutes. I stood for a moment on the pavement, whilst I made this judicious reflection, and seeing that my guide had re-entered, I too decided to do the same. "Your ticket?" said the ticket collector. "My ticket? You took it from me just now, and, as a proof, it was a white one, for which you gave me in exchange a red ticket." "Then what have you done with your red ticket?" "I gave it to a woman who asked me for it." "So that you have neither ticket nor check?" "Why, no, I have neither ticket nor check." "Then you cannot go in." "Do you mean to say I cannot enter, after having paid for my ticket twice over?" "Twice?" "Yes, twice." "How did you do that?" "Once in the queue, and again at the box-office." "You humbug!" said the ticket collector. "What did you say?" "I said you cannot go in, that is what I said." "But I mean to get in, nevertheless." "Then take a ticket at the office." "That will be the second." "Well, what does that matter to me?" "What does it matter to you?" "If you have sold your ticket at the door, it is no affair of mine." "Ah! so you take me for a dealer in checks?" "I take you for a brawler who has just been turned out for disturbing the peace, and if you go on doing it, you'll not be led out into the road the next time, but into the police station."