hear their literary criticism destroy a life’s work in a _mot_, fling immortal honour in a phrase, tossed in epigram across the table, and back again another as keen-edged--the last gossip of the stage--the loud hilarious scandal.... I can see Rodolph, the brows wrinkled in mighty furrows of keen attention as the poets read their lines--can hear his bravas that made men rich and set their blood tingling--can pluck out of the dead years the condemning thunders of his dispraise, can catch his deft wit polishing a blundering line.... But for Rodolph Salis many a poet, singer, artist had been this day in his garret, unknown--trudging, down at heels, the Undiscovered Country. But the artist in him! never forgetting his magnificence that he kept the tavern of France.... Hoho! I can hear the jovial laugh: ‘My lords,’ he’d cry, ‘the time has come for the nobility and self-respecting gentlemen to demand a fresh tankard of ale.’ Hoho! that was a king of tavern lords! Then the golden ale went round--the cloudy absinthe.... And when the room began to fill and the time for shadow-shows to begin, Salis was in full stride. Affable to his guests, always the good host, well-bred, polished, good-humoured, giving the stranger rank of nobility, he would show ‘monseigneur’ with pride of possession the cats that were limned upon the walls, the sketches, the glories of his ancient place; and lead the way to the shadow-show upstairs, sketches of France’s genius on the stair’s walls, hanging everywhere--and he so proud of it all! I can see him stride up and down the passage of the shadow theatre up there, as the witty pictures fell in black silhouette across the white sheet of the theatre’s round proscenium, his gay laugh, his running whimsical comment on affairs, his fierce biting denunciations, the flashing green eyes, the nervous white hand--God! what a fire burned there!... Ah, what songs, what poesie, what rhapsodies, what quaintly spoken words have sounded within those walls!... At midnight when the crowd was gone, as we sit here to-night, he was alone with the wits again--and the wine glowed, and the cloudy absinthe went round--and there was supper that the gods had envied to the tune of the wild badinage that was tossed about the board. And he, Rodolph Salis, the brightest star!... How the ghosts of the Great Dead have arisen at our summons, and walked there!... Tshah! _there_ was the Academy of the world.... But--he--one day--found his nerves were gone--he took to his bed.... Even amidst the rousing chorus in the wind that passed, his quick ears had heard the Old Reaper’s whetstone upon the sickle--he heard the whisper of Doom--and the nimble wit of Rodolph Salis had never missed the intention of the most subtle hint. He tossed his jibe to Death. And who with more weighty right to the insolence? He had known life----” André Joyeux ceased speaking; stood brooding; roused; striding to his place, he raised a glass--his hand shook---- The room was deathly still.