"Well then, we will say _La Forêt Périlleuse_; my servants and my gardener will be the robbers."
"I will p--p--play the fair Ca--Ca--the fair Ca--Ca--Camille."
"Better and better--just as it used to be at Nicolet's!"
"I say, I really believe Chambourdin is laughing at us! What do the company think?"
"No indeed! but it's lawful to laugh, isn't it?" said Chambourdin; "I don't imagine that you are going to act with sober faces all the time. Besides, am I not one of your troupe? I will take whatever part you wish--a robber, a tyrant, a victim. But allow me to make one suggestion; instead of your _Forêt Périlleuse_, which is not wonderfully clever, and in which there is only one female part--and that one doesn't come on in the first act--why don't you give _Roderic et Cunégonde_? That's a splendid parody on the fashionable melodrama, and full of wit from end to end; indeed, it's by the late Martainville, who had wit to sell, so I have been told; for I never knew him."
Chambourdin's suggestion was generally approved, except by Mademoiselle Eolinde, who regretted the fair Camille; but they gave her the part of Cunégonde, which was more in her line, because there are no long speeches in it.
"But there's a child in _Roderic et Cunégonde_," said Monsieur Mangeot.
"To be sure, of pasteboard; with a doll; that's simple enough."
"That makes a difference; we will have one that can talk; at a pinch I will play the child myself."
"No, no," said Monsieur Glumeau, "we'll have my gardener's little one; he's a very smart child."
"There's a peasant--little Colas; we'll turn him into a girl--little Colette."
"That's right; and Mademoiselle Polymnie will take the part."
"She would have made a little Colas quite as well!" whispered Madame Dufournelle to Chambourdin, who replied:
"There's one piece chosen," said Mangeot, "so far so good; but you are going to give something besides that, aren't you?"
"Yes, of course; we must have a very lively farce."
"Have you made your selection? If not, I suggest _Il y a plus d'un Ane à la Foire_."
"Yes," said Dufournelle, "that's very amusing; we saw it, didn't we, Eléonore?--She laughed so much that we came near having to leave the theatre."
"I don't know that play," said Monsieur Camuzard. "Are there actually any asses in it?"