... “le bras qui venge nos deux freres,
     Le bras qui rompt le cours de nos destins contraires,
     Qui nous rend"...

Here he lost his place; stammered; and recovered it with difficulty.

     "Qui nous rend maitres d’Albe"....

Madame Marotte groans aloud in an agony of apprehension

“Ah, mon Dieu!” she exclaims, gaspingly, “if they didn’t flare so, it wouldn’t be half so dangerous!”

Here M. Dorinet dropped his book, and stooping to pick up the book, dropped his spectacles.

“I think,” said Mdlle.  Honoria, indignantly, “we had better begin again.  Monsieur Dorinet, pray read with the help of a candle this time!”

And, with an angry toss of her head, Mdlle.  Honoria went up the stage, put on her tragedy face again, and prepared once more to stalk down to the footlights.

Monsieur Dorinet, in the meanwhile, had snatched up a candle, readjusted his spectacles, and found his place.

“Ma soeur” he began again, holding the book close to his eyes and the candle just under his nose, and nodding vehemently with every emphasis:—­

     “Ma soeur, voici le bras qui venge nos deux freres,
     Le bras qui rompt le cours de nos destins contraires,
     Qui nous rend maitres d’Albe” ...

A piercing scream from Madame Marotte, a general cry on the part of the audience, and a strong smell of burning, brought the dancing-master to a sudden stop.  He looked round, bewildered.

“Your wig!  Your wig’s on fire!” cried every one at once.

Monsieur Dorinet clapped his hand to his head, which was now adorned with a rapidly-spreading glory; burned his fingers; and cut a frantic caper.

“Save him! save him!” yelled Madame Marotte.

But almost before the words were out of her mouth, Mueller, clearing the candles at a bound, had rushed to the rescue, scalped Monsieur Dorinet by a tour de main, cast the blazing wig upon the floor, and trampled out the fire.

Then followed a roar of “inextinguishable laughter,” in which, however, neither the tragic Camille nor the luckless Horace joined.

“Heavens and earth!” murmured the little dancing-master, ruefully surveying the ruins of his blonde peruke.  And then he put his hand to his head, which was as bald as an egg.

In the meanwhile Mdlle.  Honoria, who had not yet succeeded in uttering a syllable of her part, took no pains to dissemble her annoyance; and was only pacified at last by a happy proposal on the part of Monsieur Philomene, who suggested that “this gifted demoiselle” should be entreated to favor the society with a soliloquy.

Thus invited, she draped herself again, stalked down to the footlights for the third time, and in a high, shrill voice, with every variety of artificial emphasis and studied gesture, recited Voltaire’s famous “Death of Coligny,” from the Henriade.