“Oh, yes, M. Andre.  Oh, yes,” said all the girls in chorus.

Their neighbour was in the habit of writing for the stage, and no one here doubted of his success.  Photography, in any case, promised fewer profits.  Clients were very rare, passers-by little disposed to business.  To keep his hand in and to save his new apparatus from rusting, M. Andre was accustomed to practise anew on the family of his friends on each succeeding Sunday.  They lent themselves to his experiments with unequalled long-suffering; the prosperity of this suburban photographer’s business was for them all an affair of amour propre, and awakened, even in the girls, that touching confraternity of feeling which draws together the destinies of people as insignificant in importance as sparrows on a roof.  Andre Maranne, with the inexhaustible resources of his great brow full of illusion, used to explain without bitterness the indifference of the public.  Sometimes the season was unfavourable, or, again, people were complaining of the bad state of business generally, and he would always end with the same consoling reflection, “When Revolt is produced!” That was the title of his play.

“It is surprising all the same,” said the fourth of M. Joyeuse’s daughters, twelve years old, with her hair in a pigtail, “it is surprising that with such a good balcony so little business should result.”

“And, if he were established on the Boulevard des Italiens,” remarks M. Joyeuse thoughtfully, and he is launched forth!—­riding his chimera till it is brought to the ground suddenly with a gesture and these words uttered sadly:  “Closed on account of bankruptcy.”  In the space of a moment the terrible visionary has just installed his friend in splendid quarters on the Boulevard, where he gains enormous sums of money, at the same time, however, increasing his expenditure to so disproportionate an extent that a fearful failure in a few months engulfs both photographer and his photography.  They laugh heartily when he gives this explanation; but all agree that the Rue Saint-Ferdinand, although less brilliant, is much more to be depended upon than the Boulevard des Italiens.  Besides, it happens to be quite near the Bois de Boulogne, and if once the fashionable world got into the way of passing through it—­That exalted society which was so much sought by her mother, is Mlle. Henriette’s fixed idea, and she is astonished that the thought of receiving “le high-life” in his little apartment on the fifth floor makes their neighbour laugh.  The other week, however, a carriage with livery had called on him.  Only just now, too, he had a very “swell” visit.

“Oh, quite a great lady!” interrupts Bonne Maman.  “We were at the window on the lookout for father.  We saw her alight from her carriage and look at the show-frame; we made sure that her visit was for you.”

“It was for me,” said Andre, a little embarrassed.

“For a moment we were afraid that she was going to pass on like so many others, on account of your five flights of stairs.  So all four of us tried to attract her without her knowing it, by the magnetism of our four staring pairs of eyes.  We drew her gently by the feathers of her hat and the laces of her cape.  ‘Come up then, madame, come up,’ and finally she entered.  There is so much magnetism in eyes that are kindly disposed.”