Following the old Jew with his gaze to the narrow side-door leading to behind-the-scenes, Claudius thought that, in the brief period of its opening and closing, he spied the bright black orbs of the Jewess striving to catch a glimpse even so transient of him.  It did not need this encouragement to make him resolve to respond to the invitation.

An hour would soon pass, even in this tedious recreation.  He felt also some resentment and curiosity to see the person whom the director of these Munich circeans considered in adequate succession to the peerless Stamboulane.  The announcement had at least kindled the public:  being plebeian, the promised aristocrat was already discussed.  The family was existent, whether this variety vocalist was legitimately a daughter being another question.  Vieradlers was a barony that had a right to fly its four eagles—­as the name signifies—­in the face of the double-headed king of the tribe.  The baron was the latest of an old Bavarian line, famous in story.  One of his ancestors was eagle-bearer to Caesar after the defeat of Hermann.  The continuators had always been near the emperors.  There might be a drop of imperial blood in the child who had so strangely degenerated as to prefer royalty on the stage to that of the court and country-house.

“She may be good-looking,” thought Claudius, “for I have noticed that where the men are uncomely the women are often the reverse.  A Berlin professor has boldly likened the male Bavarian to the gorilla and the caricaturists have taken his cue.  They are of the beer-barrel shape, coarse, rough, quarrelsome and quick to enter into a fight.  It is the national dish of roast goose—­a pugnacious bird—­and bread of oatmeal that does it.  They may well have one beauty of the sex among them.  And the carnation on the cheeks of these waitresses is so remarkable that they find rouge superfluous.  They are dull, and yet the twinkle in their eyes indicates cunning.”

Before him, the next seat was occupied by two gentlemen.  They spoke in French, thinking no one would comprehend their conversation.  They were discussing the ascending star, about which one had a deeper knowledge than the subjects of Baboushka.

“She is the cause of the disgrace of the Grand-Chamberlain of a northern kingdom,” said this well-informed man.  “He has been obliged to send in his grand cross of the Royal Order and his rank in the Holy Empire, after what was almost a revolution in the palace.  He is a man over sixty, who was in Russia on an important mission, when he met by chance this young girl, whose mother was married to a noble, although the elder sister of one of those beauties notorious for their depravity in Paris.  Perhaps, though, she secured her husband before her sister won this dubious celebrity.  At all events, she lived blamelessly, but bad blood does not lie!  This girl seems to aim at the reputation of her aunt, the celebrated Iza, whose portrait was painted, her