"He told me that, with his place, I could go where I liked."
"Of course you can go where you like; take a stage-box. You can do what you like, and you can go where you like. But tickets for the stage-boxes are at the other office."
"Forward! forward! hurry up!" exclaimed those near me.
"Gentlemen, clear the gangway, if you please," cried a voice.
"It is this gentleman, who will not take his ticket, and who prevents us from getting ours!" cried a chorus of my neighbours.
"Come, come, make up your mind."
The murmurs grew, and with them ringing in my ears, by degrees it dawned upon me what had been pretty clearly dinned into me—namely, that I had bought my place in the queue, and not my place in the theatre.
So, as people were beginning to hustle me in a threatening fashion, I drew a six-francs piece from my pocket and asked for a pit ticket. They gave me four francs six sous, and a ticket which had been white. It was time! I was immediately carried away by a wave of the crowd. I presented my once white ticket to the check-taker: they gave me in exchange a ticket that had been red. I went down a corridor to the left; I found a door on my left with the word PARTERRE written over it, and I entered. And now I understood the truth of what the habitué who had sold me his place for twenty sous had said. Although I had scarcely fifteen or twenty people in front of me in the queue, the pit was nearly full. A most compact nucleus had formed beneath the lights, and I realised then that those must be the best places.
I immediately resolved to mix with this group, which did not look to me to be too closely packed, for a good place therein. I climbed over the benches, as I had seen several other people do, and balancing myself, on the tops of their curved backs, I hastened to reach the centre.