"Very good; but as it is essential that I should always be able to find you, if only to repay what I owe you, I think I will accompany you to your small hotel at the rear of a courtyard—for it must be rather hard to find, courtyards ordinarily being behind the hotel. Then I will bid you farewell, and start for Bretagne to gather laurels and yellow-boys."
A cab was waiting at the door; the luggage was placed on top, Dodichet took his place inside, with Seringat, and did not leave him until he had seen him established in an old house on Rue Saint-Jacques, which resembled a hotel about as much as Suresnes wine resembles Chambertin.
Dodichet's first care was to lay in a stock of tobacco, pipes, cigars, and cigarette papers. After that, he turned his attention to his costume for the rôle of Joconde. He spent three hundred francs, but he had a gorgeous costume, which was almost new. On returning home, he tried it on, and deemed himself so handsome in it that he sent his concierge to tell Boulotte to come to see him as Joconde.
Mademoiselle Boulotte came, and uttered an admiring exclamation at sight of Dodichet in tight, white silk pantaloons, slashed with violet velvet, a tunic of velvet of the same color, a lace ruff, a velvet cap surmounted by a fine white feather, a gilt belt, and yellow turn-over top-boots. She insisted that he should go in that guise and take a glass of beer with her; but he dared not take the risk of going to a café, because it was not Carnival time. The best he could do was to send out for a dinner to the nearest restaurant, and dine with his young friend in his new costume.
Mademoiselle Boulotte was enchanted, and fancied that she was dining with a foreign nobleman. They ate and laughed, and drank freely. Dodichet sang snatches of his part between the courses; his voice had a fair range, but it had been made hoarse by the excessive use of tobacco.
"My dear boy," said Boulotte, "you mustn't smoke on the day of your début; no, nor on the day before, either."
"Pshaw! pshaw! I'm a little hoarse this evening; but if you swallow the yolk of an egg raw, your voice becomes clear again, as if by magic. Meanwhile, let's drink and smoke! I don't act to-morrow."
They smoked and drank so much that Joconde ended by rolling on the floor in his fine costume, which he found spotted and rumpled and torn the next morning. He was obliged to buy another pair of silk trousers; then he lost no time in taking the train for Bretagne, without trying on his costume again.
Arrived at Quimper-Corentin, Dodichet started off at once to find the manager of the theatre. As he had a large supply of self-assurance and cheek, he assumed the airs of one of the most talented performers of the age, and the manager was taken in by his manner of the man accustomed to winning triumphs. To make himself thoroughly agreeable to the manager and to his future comrades, Dodichet invited them all to dine at the best hotel in the town. At the table, he announced that they must not spare the claret or the champagne. The local artists were not accustomed to such treatment, and the manager himself, amazed to see a tenor who was apparently wallowing in gold, was persuaded that he had placed his hand on an Elleviou or a Tamberlick.
That same evening, the posters announced the early début of a young tenor who had already appeared with great success at the leading theatres of Russia, Germany, and Italy. As a measure of precaution, Dodichet did not include France. As his name was not very pleasant to the ear, and seemed better fitted to a comic actor than a real virtuoso, he caused himself to be announced as Signor Rouladini, which name seemed to promise an Italian artist.