incident, which did not surprise Carlotta’s friends, because Margarita does not sing in this act. As for the managers, they looked at each other, when the curtain fell.
“That’s one!” said Moncharmin.
“Yes, the ghost is late,” said Firmin Richard.
“It’s not a bad house,” said Moncharmin, “for ‘a house with a curse on it.’ ”
M. Richard smiled and pointed to a fat, rather vulgar woman, dressed in black, sitting in a stall in the middle of the auditorium with a man in a broadcloth frock-coat on either side of her.
“Who on earth are ‘those?’ ” asked Moncharmin.
“ ‘Those,’ my dear fellow, are my concierge, her husband and her brother.”
“Did you give them