Presently a gentleman volunteered his hat, and a lady her embroidered handkerchief; but no person seemed willing to submit his watch to the pounding process.
"Shall nobody lend me the watch ?" asked the Chevalier; but in a voice so hoarse that I scarcely recognised it.
A sudden thought struck me, and I rose in my place.
"I shall be happy to do so," I said aloud, and made my way round to the front of the platform.
At the moment when he took it from me, I spoke to him.
"Monsieur Proudhine," I whispered, "you are ill! What can I do for you ?" "Nothing, _mon enfant_," he answered, in the same low tone.

"I suffer; _mais il faut se resigner_." "Break off the performance--retire for half an hour." "Impossible.

See, they already observe us!" And he drew back abruptly.

There was a seat vacant in the front row.

I took it, resolved at all events to watch him narrowly.
Not to detail too minutely the events of a performance which since that time has become sufficiently familiar, I may say that he carried out his programme with dreadful exactness, and, after appearing to burn the handkerchief to ashes and mix up a quantity of eggs and flour in the hat, proceeded very coolly to smash the works of my watch beneath his ponderous pestle.