evening clothes, in spite of the two packs of cards that he had put in
his boots. He appeared, full of audacity, riding his high horse, raising
his flat-nosed, bull-dog face toward the "gallery gods," and, in his
voice capable of making Jericho's wall fall or raising Jehoshaphat's
dead, he dashed off in one effort, but with intelligence and heroic
feeling, his comrade's poem.

The effect was prodigious. This bold, common, but powerful actor, and
these picturesque and modern verses were something entirely new to this
public satiated with old trash. What a happy surprise! Two novelties at
once! To think of discovering an unheard-of poet and an unknown
comedian! To nibble at these two green fruits! Everybody shook off his
torpor; the anaesthetized journalists aroused themselves; the colorless
and sleepy ladies plucked up a little animation; and when Jocquelet had
made the last rhyme resound like a grand flourish of trumpets, all
applauded enough to split their gloves.

In one of the theatre lobbies, behind a bill-board pasted over with old
placards, Amedee Violette heard with delight the sound of the applause
which seemed like a shower of hailstones. He dared not think of it!
Was it really his poem that produced so much excitement, which had thawed
this cold public? Soon he did not doubt it, for Jocquelet, who had just
been recalled three times, threw himself into the poet's arms and glued
his perspiring, painted face to his.

"Well, my little one, I have done it!" he exclaimed, bursting with
gratification and vanity. "You heard how I caught them!"

Immediately twenty, thirty, a hundred spectators appeared, most of them
very correct in white cravats, but all eager and with beaming