Host. When you get to know my little actresses, M. le Commissaire, you won't blame anybody in the whole world for that.
Commissaire. Enough. The authorities have been informed that the entertainments which your—what shall I say—?
Host. The word "artists" ought to suffice.
Commissaire. I will decide on the word "subjects"—that the entertainments which your subjects provide transgress in every sense the limits the laws allow. Speeches are said to be delivered by your—what shall I say?—by your artist-criminals which—what does my information say?—(he reads from a notebook, as he had been doing previously) which are calculated to produce not only an immoral effect, which would bother us but little, but a highly seditious effect—a matter to which the authorities absolutely cannot be indifferent, at a time so agitated as the one in which we live.
Host. M. le Commissaire, I can only answer that accusation by politely inviting you to see the thing just once for yourself. You will observe that nothing of a seditious nature takes place here, if only because my audience will not permit itself to be made seditious. There is simply a theatrical performance here, that is all.
Commissaire. I naturally cannot accept your invitation, but I will stay here by virtue of my office.
Host. I think I can promise you a first-class entertainment, M. le Commissaire; but I will take the liberty of advising you to doff your official garb and to appear here in civilian clothes. If people actually saw a Commissaire in uniform here, both the spontaneity of my artists and the mood of my audience would suffer thereby.
Commissaire. You are right, M. Prosper; I will go away and come back as an elegant young man.
Host. You will have no difficulty about that, M. le Commissaire. You would be welcomed here even as a vagabond—that would not excite attention—but not as a Commissaire.
Commissaire. Good-by. (Starts to go.)