At last, Debienne made a sign to Mm. Richard and Moncharmin;
Poligny muttered a few words of excuse to the guests; and all four
went into the managers' office. I leave M. Moncharmin to complete
the story. In his Memoirs, he says:
"Mm. Debienne and Poligny seemed to grow more and more excited,
and they appeared to have something very difficult to tell us.
First, they asked us if we knew the man, sitting at the end of the table,
who had told them of the death of Joseph Buquet; and, when we answered
in the negative, they looked still more concerned. They took the
master-keys from our hands, stared at them for a moment and advised
us to have new locks made, with the greatest secrecy, for the rooms,
closets and presses that we might wish to have hermetically closed.
They said this so funnily that we began to laugh and to ask if there
were thieves at the Opera. They replied that there was something worse,
which was the GHOST. We began to laugh again, feeling sure that
they were indulging in some joke that was intended to crown our
little entertainment. Then, at their request, we became `serious,'
resolving to humor them and to enter into the spirit of the game.
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