"What for?"
"To return one of my friends a bullet he has just sent at me. Only, I hope to be more adroit than he was."
"Oh! my friend!" exclaimed Harel, "you are going to get the theatre burnt down!" And he placed himself in front of the door leading to the property stores.
"Pardon, my friend," I said to him, "I will give up the rifles as they are yours; but give me the pistols that I presented for the second representation of Richard: not only are they valuable ones but, also, they were a present."
"Hide the pistols!" cried Harel to the man who had charge of the properties.
They hid them so well that I never saw them again. Furious, I went up to the second storey. Through the small windows of the theatre, forming a long square, I could see all that was happening on the boulevard. The soldiers were still at their post, and my friend—the man with the double-barrelled gun, policeman's helmet and charivari—was with them yet. I was mad that I had not even the smallest pea-shooter. Whilst I was looking through this aperture, so narrow that it permitted me to see without being seen, an act of great signification was taking place opposite the theatre. A dragoon rushed up at full speed, bringing an order. A child was hidden behind a tree on the boulevard with a stone in his hand. Just as the dragoon passed by, the child hurled the stone and it struck the soldier's helmet. The dragoon hesitated, but did not stop to pursue the child, and went his way at full gallop. But a woman—the child's mother, probably—came out stealthily behind him, seized him by the collar and gave him a good hiding. I lowered my head.
"The women are not with us this time," I said; "we are lost!"
At that moment, I heard Harel calling me in a pitiful voice. I went down. By the door which I had burst open in order to get into the theatre, a score of men had entered and were demanding arms. They, too, had bethought themselves of Napoleon à Schönbrünn. Harel already saw his theatre being pillaged from top to bottom, and called me to help him, relying on my name, already popular, and upon my uniform as an artillery-man. I went and faced the crowd, which stopped when it caught sight of me.
"Friends," I said to them, "you are honest men."
One of them recognised me.