_My rôles have slowly withered like the roses But mother, I love my metempsychoses O seats of proteus and their metamorphoses_ AN OLD STAGE MANAGER Do you remember, Madame! One snowy night of 1832, a lost stranger knocked at the door of a villa situated on the road leading from Chanteboun to Sorrento... THE CRITIC Nowadays, for a play to be successful it is important that it should not be signed by its author. THE TRAINER TO HIS BEAR _Roll about in the sweet peas Play dead... suckle... Dance the polka... now the mazurka..._ CHORUS OF DRINKERS _Juice o' the grape Ruddy liquor Let us drink drink If we may_ CHORUS OF EATERS _Horde of gluttons There's no more A crumb left In the plate_ DRINKERS _Bloated heads Drink o drink The juice o' the grape_ R.D.RD K.PL.NG, THE ACTOR, THE ACTRESS, THE AUTHORS (To the spectators) Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! THE PROMPTER The theatre, my dear brothers, is a school for scandal, it is a place of perdition for the soul and the body. According to the testimony of the stage carpenters everything is faked in the theatre. Witches older than Morgane come there to pose as little girls of fifteen years. How much blood is spilt in a melodrama! I say truthfully, though it be false, this blood will be upon the heads of the children of the authors, the actors, the directors, and the spectators, unto the seventh generation. _Ne mater suam_, the little girls used to say to their mothers. Nowadays they ask: "Are we going to the theatre tonight?" I tell you frankly my friends. There are few shows which do not endanger the soul. Outside of the spectacle of nature I know of nothing that one may witness without fear. This last spectacle is Gallic and healthy, my dear friends. The sound dilates the glands, chases Satan from the stinking shades where he lies and thus the Fathers come in from the desert to exorcise themselves. THE MOTHER OF AN ACTRESS Are you p..., Charlotte? THE ACTRESS No, mama, I am roasting. M. MAURICE BOISSARD We have with us today the entrails of a mother! AN AUTHOR WHO HAS A PLAY ACCEPTED BY THE COMEDIE-FRANÇAISE My friend, you do not look very confident today. I am going to explain the meaning of several words from the theatrical vocabulary. Listen attentively and remember them if you can. _Acheron_ (ch hard)--A river of Hades, not of hell. _Artists_ (two types)--Is never used except in speaking of a comedian or a comedienne. _Brother_--Avoid using this substantive together with "little." The adjective "young" is more proper. NOTA BENE--This phrase does not apply to operettas. "_High Life_"--This very French expression is translated in English as "_fashionable people._" _Liaisons_--They are always dangerous in the theatre. _Papa_--Two negatives are equal to an affirmative. _Cooked Potatoes_--(never used in the singular)--A crudity that is deleterious to the stomach. _Tut-tut_--This worn expression...