CHAPTER III
AN INCOMPREHENSIBLE VENTURE
Pancakes, grits, home-made sausage, and, before each guest, an egg that had been proudly heralded by the clucking hen but a few hours before––truly a bountiful breakfast, discrediting the latest guest’s anticipations! The manager, in high spirits, mercurial as the weather, came down from his room, a bundle of posters under his arm, boisterously greeting Saint-Prosper, whom he encountered in the hall:
“Read the bill! ‘That incomparable comedy, The Honeymoon, by a peerless company.’ How does that sound?”
“Attractive, certainly,” said the other.
“Do you think it strong enough? How would ‘unparagoned’ do?”
“It would be too provincial, my dear; too provincial!” interrupted the querulous voice of the old lady.
“Very well, Madam!” the manager replied quickly. “You shall be ‘peerless’ if you wish. Every fence shall proclaim it; every post become loquacious with it.”