"Who can tell?" she murmured. "Perhaps the Mayor won't allow us to give a performance."
She was going to find out, and she took with her the necessary papers to make a formal request for the authorization.
Nadine, the eldest of the Tamby family, who undertook the always tiresome, and often troublesome task of securing the necessary permission for the little troupe to make a stay within the bounds of a commune, and give public performances, set off with no loss of time.
She quickly made her way to the center of the town where the Mayor's office was situated, but there encountered a lot of soldiers receiving directions from their officers in regard to their stay at Morainville. It was accordingly with some difficulty that she was able to reach the office of the Mayor, which was crowded with officers who were engaging his attention.
His worship was informed that a mountebank wished to see him about obtaining permission to make a stay in the town.
"I've no time to waste upon such folk, and, moreover, I won't give the permission because the soldiers are here," was his ungracious reply as conveyed to the anxious Nadine by the constable, who, noting her disappointment, added in a kinder tone on his own account:
"My young girl, the Mayor won't see you, and as he has given his answer to your request you may take my word for it that it's useless for you to wait about here. You'd better push on to some other town where you'll have a chance to give a performance."
"But, sir," pleaded Nadine, her lip trembling, and her fine eyes filling with tears, "if we don't perform this evening we shall have nothing to eat to-morrow. We might get along somehow ourselves, but our animals, they must be fed."
The constable was touched by her plea, and the charm of her simple manner.
"Very well, then," he responded, laying his big hand upon her shoulder in a fatherly way. "You'll have to try and see the Mayor at his own house," and the kind-hearted fellow gave Nadine directions how to find it, and what to do when she got there.