“We have plenty of time to spare,” said my host.  “In the meantime it will be necessary for us to find out what they are doing.  If you will wait I will despatch a messenger, who will procure us the information.”

He wrote something on a half-sheet of note-paper, rang the bell, and handed it to Susanne.

“Give that to Leon,” he said, “and tell him to be off with it at once.”

The woman disappeared, and when she had gone we resumed our conversation.  Had he not had the good fortune to be such a great success in his own profession, what an admirable actor the man would have made!  His power of facial contortion was extraordinary, and I believe that on demand he could have imitated almost any face that struck his fancy.

“And now with regard to our little excursion,” he said.  “What would you like to be?  As you are aware, I can offer you a varied selection.  Will you be a workman, a pedlar, an elderly gentleman from the Provinces, or a street beggar?”

“I think the elderly gentleman from the Provinces would suit me best,” I answered, “while it will not necessitate a change of dress.”

“Very good then, so it shall be,” he replied.  “We’ll be a couple of elderly gentlemen in Paris for the first time.  Let me conduct you to my dressing-room, where you will find all that is necessary for your make-up.”

He thereupon showed me to a room leading out of that in which we had hitherto been sitting.  It was very small, and lighted by means of a skylight.  Indeed, it was that very skylight, so he always declared, that induced him to take the flat.

“If this room looked out over the back, or front, it would have been necessary for me either to have curtains, which I abominate, or to run the risk of being observed, which would have been far worse,” he had remarked to me once.  “Needless to say there are times when I find it most necessary that my preparations should not be suspected.”

Taken altogether, it was a room that had a strange fascination for me.  I had been in it many times before, but was always able to discover something new in it.  It was a conglomeration of cupboards and shelves.  A large variety of costumes hung upon the pegs in the walls, ranging from soldier’s uniforms to beggar’s rags.  There were wigs of all sorts and descriptions on blocks, pads of every possible order and for every part of the body, humps for hunchbacks, wooden legs, boots ranging from the patent leather of the dandy to the toeless foot-covering of the beggar.  There were hats in abundance, from the spotless silk to the most miserable head coverings, some of which looked as if they had been picked up from the rubbish-heap.  There were pedlars’ trays fitted with all and every sort of ware, a faro-table, a placard setting forth the fact that the renowned Professor Somebody or Other was a most remarkable phrenologist and worthy of a visit.  In fact there was no saying what there was not there.  Everything that was calculated to be useful to him in his profession was to be found in the room.