That was the sum of his criticism of Nana’s talent.  La Faloise leaned forward and looked down at the boulevard.  Over against them the windows of a hotel and of a club were brightly lit up, while on the pavement below a dark mass of customers occupied the tables of the Cafe de Madrid.  Despite the lateness of the hour the crowd were still crushing and being crushed; people were advancing with shortened step; a throng was constantly emerging from the Passage Jouffroy; individuals stood waiting five or six minutes before they could cross the roadway, to such a distance did the string of carriages extend.

“What a moving mass!  And what a noise!” La Faloise kept reiterating, for Paris still astonished him.

The bell rang for some time; the foyer emptied.  There was a hurrying of people in the passages.  The curtain was already up when whole bands of spectators re-entered the house amid the irritated expressions of those who were once more in their places.  Everyone took his seat again with an animated look and renewed attention.  La Faloise directed his first glance in Gaga’s direction, but he was dumfounded at seeing by her side the tall fair man who but recently had been in Lucy’s stage box.

“What is that man’s name?” he asked.

Fauchery failed to observe him.

“Ah yes, it’s Labordette,” he said at last with the same careless movement.  The scenery of the second act came as a surprise.  It represented a suburban Shrove Tuesday dance at the Boule Noire.  Masqueraders were trolling a catch, the chorus of which was accompanied with a tapping of their heels.  This ’Arryish departure, which nobody had in the least expected, caused so much amusement that the house encored the catch.  And it was to this entertainment that the divine band, let astray by Iris, who falsely bragged that he knew the Earth well, were now come in order to proceed with their inquiry.  They had put on disguises so as to preserve their incognito.  Jupiter came on the stage as King Dagobert, with his breeches inside out and a huge tin crown on his head.  Phoebus appeared as the Postillion of Lonjumeau and Minerva as a Norman nursemaid.  Loud bursts of merriment greeted Mars, who wore an outrageous uniform, suggestive of an Alpine admiral.  But the shouts of laughter became uproarious when Neptune came in view, clad in a blouse, a high, bulging workman’s cap on his head, lovelocks glued to his temples.  Shuffling along in slippers, he cried in a thick brogue.

“Well, I’m blessed!  When ye’re a masher it’ll never do not to let ’em love yer!”

There were some shouts of “Oh!  Oh!” while the ladies held their fans one degree higher.  Lucy in her stage box laughed so obstreperously that Caroline Hequet silenced her with a tap of her fan.