III. The Mysterious Reason

lyric stage in France” and ends with Clause 98, which says that the privilege can be withdrawn if the manager infringes the conditions stipulated in the memorandum-book. This is followed by the conditions, which are four in number. The copy produced by M. Poligny was written in black ink and exactly similar to that in our possession, except that, at the end, it contained a paragraph in red ink and in a queer, labored handwriting, as though it had been produced by dipping the heads of matches into the ink, the writing of a child that has never got beyond the downstrokes and has not learned to join its letters. This paragraph ran, word for word, as follows: M. Poligny pointed with a hesitating finger to this last clause, which we certainly did not expect. “Is this all? Does he not want anything else?” asked Richard, with the greatest coolness. “Yes, he does,” replied Poligny. And he turned over the pages of the memorandum-book until he came to the clause specifying the days on which certain private boxes were to be reserved for the free use of the president of the republic, the ministers and so on. At the end of this clause, a line had been added, also in red ink: “Box Five on the grand tier shall be placed at the disposal of the Opera ghost for every performance.” When we saw this, there was nothing else for us to do but to rise from our chairs, shake our two predecessors warmly