“He will be missed.”

“Yes.  I have come with a message to the manager from him.  Just try to get me a word with him, dear.”

“A lady from M. Pons to see you, sir!” After this fashion did the youth attached to the service of the manager’s office announce La Cibot, whom the portress below had particularly recommended to his care.

Gaudissart had just come in for a rehearsal.  Chance so ordered it that no one wished to speak with him; actors and authors were alike late.  Delighted to have news of his conductor, he made a Napoleonic gesture, and La Cibot was admitted.

The sometime commercial traveler, now the head of a popular theatre, regarded his sleeping partners in the light of a legitimate wife; they were not informed of all his doings.  The flourishing state of his finances had reacted upon his person.  Grown big and stout and high-colored with good cheer and prosperity, Gaudissart made no disguise of his transformation into a Mondor.

“We are turning into a city-father,” he once said, trying to be the first to laugh.

“You are only in the Turcaret stage yet, though,” retorted Bixiou, who often replaced Gaudissart in the company of the leading lady of the ballet, the celebrated Heloise Brisetout.

The former Illustrious Gaudissart, in fact, was exploiting the theatre simply and solely for his own particular benefit, and with brutal disregard of other interests.  He first insinuated himself as a collaborator in various ballets, plays, and vaudevilles; then he waited till the author wanted money and bought up the other half of the copyright.  These after-pieces and vaudevilles, always added to successful plays, brought him in a daily harvest of gold coins.  He trafficked by proxy in tickets, allotting a certain number to himself, as the manager’s share, till he took in this way a tithe of the receipts.  And Gaudissart had other methods of making money besides these official contributions.  He sold boxes, he took presents from indifferent actresses burning to go upon the stage to fill small speaking parts, or simply to appear as queens, or pages, and the like; he swelled his nominal third share of the profits to such purpose that the sleeping partners scarcely received one-tenth instead of the remaining two-thirds of the net receipts.  Even so, however, the tenth paid them a dividend of fifteen per cent on their capital.  On the strength of that fifteen per cent Gaudissart talked of his intelligence, honesty, and zeal, and the good fortune of his partners.  When Count Popinot, showing an interest in the concern, asked Matifat, or General Gouraud (Matifat’s son-in-law), or Crevel, whether they were satisfied with Gaudissart, Gouraud, now a peer of France, answered, “They say he robs us; but he is such a clever, good-natured fellow, that we are quite satisfied.”

“This is like La Fontaine’s fable,” smiled the ex-cabinet minister.

Gaudissart found investments for his capital in other ventures.  He thought well of Schwab, Brunner, and the Graffs; that firm was promoting railways, he became a shareholder in the lines.  His shrewdness was carefully hidden beneath the frank carelessness of a man of pleasure; he seemed to be interested in nothing but amusements and dress, yet he thought everything over, and his wide experience of business gained as a commercial traveler stood him in good stead.