At this very informal signal, the curtain rose upon a ridiculously small stage, and an insignificant, nervous-looking man stepped toward the footlights at the same moment that M. Fruvier and his followers entered and seated themselves in a row, their backs to the wall.

This appearance of the proprietor was the sole meed of interest offered to the singer, the audience continuing to smoke, to sip, even to peruse the evening papers with stoic indifference.

The song began—­a long and unamusing ditty, topical in its points.  Here and there a smile showed that it did not pass unheard, and as the singer disappeared a faint roulade of applause came from the back of the room.

Max turned to his companion.

“But I believed the Parisians to be all excitement!  What an audience!  Like the dead!”

“They are excitable when something excites them.”

“Then they dislike this song?”

“Oh no!  ‘Not bad!’ they’d say if you asked them; but they’re not here to be excited—­they’re not here to waste enthusiasm.  Like ourselves, they have worked and have eaten, and are enjoying an hour’s repose.  The song is part of the hour—­as inevitable as the bock and the cigar, and you can’t expect a smoker to wax eloquent over a familiar weed.”

“How strange!  How interesting!” The boy looked round the scattered groups that formed to his young eyes another side-show in the vast theatre of life.

No one heeded his interest.  The women, young and elderly alike, conversed with their escorts and sipped their liqueurs with absorbed quiet; the men smoked and drank, talked or read aloud little paragraphs from their papers with whispering relish.

Then again the piano tinkled, and the same singer appeared, to sing another song almost identical with the first; but now his nervousness was less, he won a laugh or two for his political innuendoes, and when he finished Max clapped his hands, and Blake laughingly followed suit.

“He’s a new man,” he said; “this is probably his first night.”

“His first?  Oh, poor creature!  What a debut!  Clap your hands again!”

“Poor creature indeed!  He’s delighted with himself.  Many a better man has been driven from the stage after his first verse.  Your Paris can be cruel.”

Their example had been tepidly followed, and the singer, beaming under the relaxed tension of his nerves, was smiling and bowing before entering upon the perils of a third song.

“And what do they pay him?”

“Oh, a couple of francs a song!  The fees will grow with his success.”

Max gasped.  “A couple of francs!  Oh, my God!”

“What do you expect?  We’re not in Eldorado.”

“But a couple of francs!”

“Ssh!  Don’t talk anarchy.  Here come the powers that be!”

M. Fruvier was coming toward them, making his way between the seats with many bows, many apologetic smiles.