“Well played? How do I know? But six persons came to see it—I one—and in six minutes it is all done. Your English ’Amlet will not play to the empty bench. He call down the curtain, and bid us go where we please. Not even will he pay us back our money. Then, when he come to leave the hall himself, voilà, he has no money to pay his rent. His baggage is seized, and ’Amlet fights. Mon dieu, there was une émeute in Boulogne that night; and before day ’Amlet has vanish like his own ghost, and I am a robbed man; voilà.”
“Very rough on you,” said the tutor. “So there was a ghost among the players?”
“Why no? It would not be ’Amlet without.”
“Did the ghost stay here too?”
“Hélas! yes. He eat, and drink, and sleep, and forgets to pay, like the rest.”
“What did you lose by him?” asked Roger, with parched lips.
“Ah, monsieur, I was a Napoleon poorer for every ’Amlet in my house that night.”
Roger put down two sovereigns on the table.
“That is to pay for the ghost,” said he, flushing. “He was my brother.”
The landlord stared in blank amazement.