"During these unexpected utterances made in a tone of the most secret and important confidence, I looked at Richard.Richard, in his student days, had acquired a great reputation for practical joking, and he seemed to relish the dish which was being served up to him in his turn.He did not miss a morsel of it, though the seasoning was a little gruesome because of the death of Buquet.He nodded his head sadly, while the others spoke, and his features assumed the air of a man who bitterly regretted having taken over the Opera, now that he knew that there was a ghost mixed up in the business.
I could think of nothing better than to give him a servile imitation of this attitude of despair.However, in spite of all our efforts, we could not, at the finish, help bursting out laughing in the faces of MM.Debienne and Poligny, who, seeing us pass straight from the gloomiest state of mind to one of the most insolent merriment, acted as though they thought that we had gone mad.
"The joke became a little tedious; and Richard asked half-seriously and half in jest:
"`But, after all, what does this ghost of yours want?'
"M.Poligny went to his desk and returned with a copy of the memorandum-book.The memorandum-book begins with the well-known words saying that `the management of the Opera shall give to the performance of the National Academy of Music the splendor that becomes the first lyric stage in France' and ends with Clause 98, which says that the privilege can be withdrawn if the manager infringes the conditions stipulated in the memorandum-book.
This is followed by the conditions, which are four in number.
"The copy produced by M.Poligny was written in black ink and exactly similar to that in our possession, except that, at the end, it contained a paragraph in red ink and in a queer, labored handwriting, as though it had been produced by dipping the heads of matches into the ink, the writing of a child that has never got beyond the down-strokes and has not learned to join its letters.This paragraph ran, word for word, as follows:
"`5.Or if the manager, in any month, delay for more than a fortnight the payment of the allowance which he shall make to the Opera ghost, an allowance of twenty thousand francs a month, say two hundred and forty thousand francs a year.'
"M.Poligny pointed with a hesitating finger to this last clause, which we certainly did not expect.
"`Is this all? Does he not want anything else?' asked Richard, with the greatest coolness.
"`Yes, he does,' replied Poligny.
"And he turned over the pages of the memorandum-book until he came to the clause specifying the days on which certain private boxes were to be reserved for the free use of the president of the republic, the ministers and so on.At the end of this clause, a line had been added, also in red ink:
"`Box Five on the grand tier shall be placed at the disposal of the Opera ghost for every performance.'
"When we saw this, there was nothing else for us to do but to rise from our chairs, shake our two predecessors warmly by the hand and congratulate them on thinking of this charming little joke, which proved that the old French sense of humor was never likely to become extinct.Richard added that he now understood why MM.
Debienne and Poligny were retiring from the management of the National Academy of Music.Business was impossible with so unreasonable a ghost.
"`Certainly, two hundred and forty thousand francs are not be picked up for the asking,' said M.Poligny, without moving a muscle of his face.
`And have you considered what the loss over Box Five meant to us?
We did not sell it once; and not only that, but we had to return the subscription: why, it's awful! We really can't work to keep ghosts!
We prefer to go away!'
"`Yes,' echoed M.Debienne, `we prefer to go away.Let us go.'
"And he stood up.Richard said: `But, after all all, it seems to me that you were much too kind to the ghost.If I had such a troublesome ghost as that, I should not hesitate to have him arrested.'
"`But how? Where?' they cried, in chorus.`We have never seen him!'
"`But when he comes to his box?'
"'WE HAVE NEVER SEEN HIM IN HIS BOX.'
"`Then sell it.'
"`Sell the Opera ghost's box! Well, gentlemen, try it.'
"Thereupon we all four left the office.Richard and I had `never laughed so much in our lives.'"
