United States or Malawi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I then spoke of the two successors and expressed my surprise that, in his Memoirs of a Manager, M. Moncharmin should describe the Opera ghost's behavior at such length in the first part of the book and hardly mention it at all in the second.
In reply to this, the Persian, who knew the MEMOIRS as thoroughly as if he had written them himself, observed that I should find the explanation of the whole business if I would just recollect the few lines which Moncharmin devotes to the ghost in the second part aforesaid.
"And what might you think?" asked Moncharmin, crimson with rage. "I might think that, as you hadn't left me by a foot's breadth and as, by your own wish, you were the only one to approach me, like last time, I might think that, if that twenty-thousand francs was no longer in my pocket, it stood a very good chance of being in yours!" Moncharmin leaped up at the suggestion. "Oh!" he shouted.
"Oh, wonderful, no doubt!" Moncharmin agreed. "Only, you forget, Richard, that I provided ten-thousand francs of the twenty and that nobody put anything in my pocket!" Flash notes drawn on the "Bank of St. Farce" in France correspond with those drawn on the "Bank of Engraving" in England.
Giry's excited features to understand what could be got out of that fine intellect with the two words "ghost" and "empress." But who pulled the strings of that extraordinary puppet? That was the question. "You have never seen him; he speaks to you and you believe all he says?" asked Moncharmin. "Yes. To begin with, I owe it to him that my little Meg was promoted to be the leader of a row.
O. Ghost's two letters had been posted at the Boulevard des Capucines post-office, as Moncharmin remarked after examining the envelopes. "You see!" said Richard. They shrugged their shoulders and regretted that two men of that age should amuse themselves with such childish tricks. "They might have been civil, for all that!" said Moncharmin.
"Yes, of a silly joke." "One doesn't joke with twenty-thousand francs." "That's what I think," declared Moncharmin, unfolding a newspaper and ostentatiously studying its contents. "What are you doing?" asked Richard. "Are you going to read the paper next?" "Yes, Richard, until I take you home." "Like last time?" "Yes, like last time." Richard snatched the paper from Moncharmin's hands.
THE POCKET WAS EMPTY. And the curious thing was that the pin remained, stuck in the same place. Richard and Moncharmin turned pale. There was no longer any doubt about the witchcraft. "The ghost!" muttered Moncharmin. But Richard suddenly sprang upon his partner. "No one but you has touched my pocket! Give me back my twenty-thousand francs! ... Give me back my twenty-thousand francs! ..."
"Wait, don't be in such a hurry," replied M. Armand Moncharmin, in the same gay tone. "The performance has only begun and you know that the ghost does not usually come until the middle of the first act." The first act passed without incident, which did not surprise Carlotta's friends, because Margarita does not sing in this act.
M. Richard behaved like a hero. He retreated no farther. His threatening forefinger seemed already to be pointing out the keeper of Box Five to the absent magistrates. "I am going to have you arrested, Mme. Giry, as a thief!" "Say that again!" And Mme. Giry caught Mr. Manager Richard a mighty box on the ear, before Mr. Manager Moncharmin had time to intervene.
Word Of The Day