"Old toad!" Castanier murmured piteously.

"Here come the master and mistress; hide yourself! Stay, get in here
Monsieur Leon," said Jenny. "The master won't stay here for very
long."

Castanier watched the sergeant hide himself among Aquilina's gowns in
her dressing-room. Almost immediately he himself appeared upon the
scene, and took leave of his mistress, who made fun of him in "asides"
to Jenny, while she uttered the sweetest and tenderest words in his
ears. She wept with one side of her face, and laughed with the other.
The audience called for an encore.

"Accursed creature!" cried Castanier from his box.

Aquilina was laughing till the tears came into her eyes.

"Goodness!" she cried, "how funny Perlet is as the Englishwoman! . . .
Why don't you laugh? Every one else in the house is laughing. Laugh,
dear!" she said to Castanier.

Melmoth burst out laughing, and the unhappy cashier shuddered. The
Englishman's laughter wrung his heart and tortured his brain; it was
as if a surgeon had bored his skull with a red-hot iron.

"Laughing! are they laughing!" stammered Castanier.

He did not see the prim English lady whom Perlet was acting with such
ludicrous effect, nor hear the English-French that had filled the