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Sitting in the centre of the porch, as if it were the proscenium of his theatre, Cardailhac, while superintending the rehearsals, issued his commands to a multitude of workmen and gardeners, ordered trees to be felled which obstructed the view, drew sketches of the triumphal arches, sent despatches and messengers to mayors, to sub-prefects, to Arles to procure a deputation of girls of the province in the national costume, to Barbantane, where the most skilful dancers of the farandole are to be found, to Faraman renowned for its herds of wild bulls and Camarguese horses; and as Jansoulet's name blazed forth at the foot of all these despatches, as the name of the Bey of Tunis also figured in them, everybody acquiesced with the utmost eagerness, the telegraphic messages arrived in an endless stream, and that little Sardanapalus from Porte-Saint-Martin, who was called Cardailhac, was forever repeating: "There is something to work with;" delighted to throw gold about like handfuls of seed, to have a stage fifty leagues in circumference to arrange, all Provence, of which country that fanatical Parisian was a native, and thoroughly familiar with its resources in the direction of the picturesque.

In a proscenium box, filled with people, was the artillery captain, the father of Robetti, the boy with the crutches who saved the child from the omnibus.

It had been a long time since he had been put through this particular ordeal and he was out of practice. They reached the house just as the lights went out. Prosper was amused at his own intense excitement. "I didn't know I was still such a kid," he said, flashing a smile, the first spontaneous one he had given her, upon Betty who sat beside him in the proscenium box.

The Manager was on the stage, so the girl secretary informed him, and if Mr. MacDermott would kindly follow her she would take him there at once. He had never seen the stage side of the proscenium before, and although the place was dark and he stumbled over properties, he felt enormously interested in what he saw.

The mob burst in tore the marble from the proscenium, smashed the statues of admirable Greek sculpture, overthrew the altar and ground it to powder, upset the columns, and reduced it to a state of ruin very little better than that in which it is at present.

In the back or central scene, it is probable, that much which with us is only painted was given bodily. If this represented a palace or temple, there was usually in the proscenium an altar, which in the performance answered a number of purposes.

By this time every window in the tenement at the blind end of the alley had been converted into a proscenium box, and suggestions, advice, and incriminating evidence were being freely volunteered. "Who started this here racket, anyhow?" asked the policeman, in the bored tone of one who is rehearsing an oft-repeated scene.

The scene disclosed a cloth upon which was painted, to the right, a vast writhing purple cuttle-fish whose finer tentacles were lost above the proscenium arch, and to the left an enormous crimson oblong patch with a hole in it.

What she dreaded came at last. They all attended the opera one evening, and a brilliant appearance they made as they sat in one of the proscenium boxes. But Violet did not enjoy the performance, and could not follow it; her thoughts would go back to that fateful day when her life was saved by the coolness and determination of Wallace Richardson.

What much facilitated my visits to the theatre was, that my free ticket, coming from the hands of the /Schultheiss/, gave me access to any of the seats, and therefore also to those in the proscenium.