a Norman nursemaid. Loud bursts of merriment greeted Mars, who wore an
outrageous uniform, suggestive of an Alpine admiral. But the shouts of
laughter became uproarious when Neptune came in view, clad in a blouse,
a high, bulging workman's cap on his head, lovelocks glued to his
temples. Shuffling along in slippers, he cried in a thick brogue.

"Well, I'm blessed! When ye're a masher it'll never do not to let 'em
love yer!"

There were some shouts of "Oh! Oh!" while the ladies held their fans
one degree higher. Lucy in her stage box laughed so obstreperously that
Caroline Hequet silenced her with a tap of her fan.

From that moment forth the piece was saved--nay, more, promised a great
success. This carnival of the gods, this dragging in the mud of their
Olympus, this mock at a whole religion, a whole world of poetry,
appeared in the light of a royal entertainment. The fever of irreverence
gained the literary first-night world: legend was trampled underfoot;
ancient images were shattered. Jupiter's make-up was capital. Mars was
a success. Royalty became a farce and the army a thing of folly. When
Jupiter, grown suddenly amorous of a little laundress, began to knock
off a mad cancan, Simonne, who was playing the part of the laundress,
launched a kick at the master of the immortals' nose and addressed him
so drolly as "My big daddy!" that an immoderate fit of laughter shook
the whole house. While they were dancing Phoebus treated Minerva to
salad bowls of negus, and Neptune sat in state among seven or eight
women who regaled him with cakes. Allusions were eagerly caught;
indecent meanings were attached to them; harmless phrases were diverted
from their proper significations in the light of exclamations issuing
from the stalls. For a long time past the theatrical public had not