“Of course, lucky man, you have seen _Chantecler_, and if you don’t tell me all about it by return of post I shall never write to you, and never look at you, and never speak to you again. I don’t want to know anything about the plot of the play, as I have read all about that in the papers. You have got to be a dear, and tell me about the hat that Madame Simone wears as the Hen Pheasant. It’s made of straw and feathers, and it’s going to be the rage in London. Sybil Osborne tells me chic Parisiennes are wearing it already. No; on second thoughts, send me all the fashionable illustrated papers that give sketches of the hat. As you’re a man, you won’t understand it. Mind, _all_ the papers: you can’t send enough. If you could get a special sketch done by one of your artist friends in the Latin Quarter, it would be lovely.” Well, of course I write to the gentle, kindly silver-haired lady who once took me to a Drury Lane pantomime; and of course, too, I send illustrated papers—thirteen of them—to exquisite Miss Tempest, and ask Raoul Fauchois, a gay, sympathetic art student, to “do” me a sketch of the Hen Pheasant’s straw hat. He consents, and I fancy he will keep his promise. “Naturally, the sketch is not for you,” he says, at once wisely and poetically. “It is for one of those blonde English misses whose _chevelure_, so radiant, so golden, lights up the sombre streets of old London. You may rely upon me, _mon pauvre ami_. I understand; I know exactly how you feel—for I myself have had affairs of the heart.” Again, always from London and the provinces, requests for picture post cards of the principal scenes in _Chantecler_; for gilt brooches (3 f. 50 c. in the tawdry shops of the rue de Rivoli) representing “Chantecler” crowing and crowing with his chest thrown outwards and his beak raised heavenwards; for the Porte St-Martin theatre programme of _Chantecler_; and for—“if you possibly can manage it”—the autograph of M. Edmond Rostand. And then a telegram: “Wife and self arrive Gare du Nord Wednesday 5.45. Please meet us. Not understanding French wish you accompany us see and interpret _Chantecler_.” What worry, what exhaustion! “Monsieur would be kind to explain this extraordinary ‘Chantecler’ to me. I am from the country, and have had much to do with poultry; but I have never seen a cock like Chantecler,” says my servant, a simple, naïve soul from Normandy. Then my concierge, a practical lady: “But it’s ridiculous, but it’s mad! Cocks and hens cannot even speak, and yet this M. Rostand makes them recite poetry. What is France coming to? What will be the end of us all? Think, just think, what has been happening since the New Year. That sinister comet, the terrible floods, and now _Chantecler_.” Very unwisely, I explain to my servant and to my concierge that M. Rostand’s glorious _chef-d’œuvre_ is symbolical. _Chantecler_ is a symbolic play in verse.