My proposal was welcomed with shouts of joy, and I called for pen, ink, and paper, and drew up the agreement.

“For to-morrow,” I said to Bassi, “the prices for admission shall remain the same, but the day after we will see what can be done.  You and your family will sup with me to-morrow, as also the young Alsatian whom I could never separate from her dear Harlequin:” 

He issued bills of an enticing description for the following evening; but, in spite of all, the pit only contained a score of common people, and nearly all the boxes were empty.

Bassi had done his best, and when we met at supper he came up to me looking extremely confused, and gave me ten or twelve florins.

“Courage!” said I; and I proceeded to share them among the guests present.

We had a good supper, and I kept them at table till midnight, giving them plenty of choice wine and playing a thousand pranks with Bassi’s daughter and the young Alsatian, who sat one on each side of me.  I did not heed the jealous Harlequin, who seemed not to relish my familiarities with his sweetheart.  The latter lent herself to my endearments with a bad enough grace, as she hoped Harlequin would marry her, and consequently did not want to vex him.  When supper was over, we rose, and I took her between my arms, laughing, and caressing her in a manner which seemed too suggestive to the lover, who tried to pull me away.  I thought this rather too much in my turn, and seizing him by his shoulders I dismissed him with a hearty kick, which he received with great humility.  However, the situation assumed a melancholy aspect, for the poor girl began to weep bitterly.  Bassi and his wife, two hardened sinners, laughed at her tears, and Bassi’s daughter said that her lover had offered me great provocation; but the young Alsatian continued weeping, and told me that she would never sup with me again if I did not make her lover return.

“I will see to all that,” said I; and four sequins soon made her all smiles again.  She even tried to shew me that she was not really cruel, and that she would be still less so if I could manage the jealous Harlequin.  I promised everything, and she did her best to convince me that she would be quite complaisant on the first opportunity.

I ordered Bassi to give notice that the pit would be two florins and the boxes a ducat, but that the gallery would be opened freely to the first comers.

“We shall have nobody there,” said he, looking alarmed.

“Maybe, but that remains to be seen.  You must request twelve soldiers to keep order, and I will pay for them.”

“We shall want some soldiers to look after the mob which will besiege the gallery, but as for the rest of the house . . . .”

“Again I tell you, we shall see.  Carry out my instructions, and whether they prove successful or no, we will have a merry supper as usual.”

The next day I called upon the Harlequin in his little den of a room, and with two Louis, and a promise to respect his mistress, I made him as soft as a glove.