Our Aunt Page #2

								


"Those were his own words, and they were just like him," said
our aunt.

He looked down from above on the 'Judgment of Solomon,' and fell
asleep over it. One would have thought that he had come from a
dinner where many toasts had been given. He went to sleep, and was
locked in. And there he sat through the dark night in the flies, and
when he woke, he told a story, but our aunt would not believe it.

"The 'Judgment of Solomon' was over," he said, "and all the people
had gone away, up stairs and down stairs; but now the real play began,
the after-piece, which was the best of all," said the agent. "Then
life came into the affair. It was not the 'Judgment of Solomon' that
was performed; no, a real court of judgment was held upon the
stage." And Agent Fabs had the impudence to try and make our aunt
believe all this. That was the thanks she got for having got him a
place in the flies.

What did the agent say? Why, it was curious enough to hear, but
there was malice and satire in it.

"It looked dark enough up there," said the agent; "but then the
magic business began--a great performance, 'The Judgment in the
Theatre.' The box-keepers were at their posts, and every spectator had
to show his ghostly pass-book, that it might be decided if he was to
be admitted with hands loose or bound, and with or without a muzzle.
Grand people who came too late, when the performance had begun, and
young people, who could not always watch the time, were tied up
outside, and had list slippers put on their feet, with which they were
allowed to go in before the beginning of the next act, and they had
muzzles too. And then the 'Judgment on the Stage' began."

"All malice, and not a bit of truth in it," said our aunt.

The painter, who wanted to get to Paradise, had to go up a
staircase which he had himself painted, but which no man could
mount. That was to expiate his sins against perspective. All the
plants and buildings, which the property-man had placed, with infinite
pains, in countries to which they did not belong, the poor fellow
was obliged to put in their right places before cockcrow, if he wanted
to get into Paradise. Let Herr Fabs see how he would get in himself;
but what he said of the performers, tragedians and comedians,
singers and dancers, that was the most rascally of all. Mr. Fabs,
indeed!--Flabs! He did not deserve to be admitted at all, and our aunt
would not soil her lips with what he said. And he said, did Flabs,
that the whole was written down, and it should be printed when he
was dead and buried, but not before, for he would not risk having
his arms and legs broken.

Once our aunt had been in fear and trembling in her temple of
happiness, the theatre. It was on a winter day, one of those days in
which one has a couple of hours of daylight, with a gray sky. It was
terribly cold and snowy, but aunt must go to the theatre. A little
opera and a great ballet were performed, and a prologue and an
epilogue into the bargain; and that would last till late at night. Our
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