“What do you want with me?” asked the General-President, sharply.  “Do you not know I am busy?”

“Not too busy to see me,” retorted the unwelcome guest, striking up a lively tune upon a banjo which he had concealed about his person while passing the Palace Guard, but which he now produced.  “I pray you step with me a measure.”

Thus courteously invited, His Highness could but comply, and for some ten minutes host and guest indulged in a breakdown.

“And now, what do you want with me?” asked the General-President when the dance had been brought to a satisfactory conclusion.

“My reward,” was the prompt reply.

“Reward!” echoed His Highness.  “Why, my good friend, I have refused a Royal Duke, an Imperial Prince, a Powerful Order, and any number of individuals, who have made a like demand.”

“Ah! but they did not do so much for you as I did.”

“Well, I don’t know,” returned the General-President, “but they parted with their gold pretty freely.”

“Gold!” retorted the visitor, contemptuously, “I gave you more than gold.  From me you had notes.  Where would you have been without my songs?” He took off his false nose, and thus enabled the General-President to recognise the “Pride of the Music Halls!”

“You will find I am not ungrateful,” said the Chief of the State, with difficulty suppressing his emotion.

His Highness was as good as his word.  The next night at the Cafe des Ambassadeurs there was a novel attraction.  An old favourite was described in the affiches as le Due de Nouveau-Cirque.

The reception that old favourite received in the course of the evening was fairly, but not too cordial.  But enthusiasm and hilarity reached fever-heat when, on turning his face from them, the audience discovered that their droll was wearing (in a somewhat grotesque fashion) the grand cordon of the Legion of Honour on his back!  Then it was felt that France must be safe in the hands of a man whose sense of the fitness of things rivalled the taste of the pig whose soul soared above the charm of pearls!

* * * * *

SCOTT-FREE; OR, RAVENSWOOD-NOTES WILD.

ACT I.—­A grand old Castle in the distance, with foreground of rude and rugged rocks.  Around the rugged rocks a quaint funeral service.  HENRY IRVING, “the Master” not only of Ravenswood, but the art of acting (as instanced by a score of fine impersonations), flouts the veteran comedian, HOWE; and, Howe attired?  He is in some strange garb as a nondescript parson.  Then “Master” (as the Sporting Times would irreverently speak of him) soliloquises over Master’s father’s coffin.  Arrival of Sir William Ashton.  Row and flashing of steel in torchlight.  Appearance of one lovely beyond compare—­ELLEN TERRY, otherwise Lucy Ashton; graceful as a Swan.  Swan and Edgar.  Curtain.