proprietors, better as new."

There was a pause, and a laugh. Presently a gentleman volunteered his
hat, and a lady her embroidered handkerchief; but no person seemed
willing to submit his watch to the pounding process.

"Shall nobody lend me the watch?" asked the Chevalier; but in a voice
so hoarse that I scarcely recognised it.

A sudden thought struck me, and I rose in my place.

"I shall be happy to do so," I said aloud, and made my way round to the
front of the platform.

At the moment when he took it from me, I spoke to him.

"Monsieur Proudhine," I whispered, "you are ill! What can I do for you?"

"Nothing, _mon enfant_," he answered, in the same low tone. "I suffer;
_mais il faut se résigner_."

"Break off the performance--retire for half an hour."

"Impossible. See, they already observe us!"

And he drew back abruptly. There was a seat vacant in the front row. I
took it, resolved at all events to watch him narrowly.

Not to detail too minutely the events of a performance which since that
time has become sufficiently familiar, I may say that he carried out his