PRIVATE BOX. 

 Believe me to be, dear Mr. Manager, without prejudice to these little observations, 

 Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant, OPERA GHOST. 

 The letter was accompanied by a cutting from the agony-column of the Revue Theatrale, which ran: 

 O. G.—There is no excuse for R. and M. We told them and left your memorandum-book in their hands. Kind regards. 

 M. Firmin Richard had hardly finished reading this letter when M. Armand Moncharmin entered, carrying one exactly similar. They looked at each other and burst out laughing. 

 "They are keeping up the joke," said M. Richard, "but I don't call it funny." 

 "What does it all mean?" asked M. Moncharmin.  "Do they imagine that, because they have been managers of the Opera, we are going to let them have a box for an indefinite period?" 

 "I am not in the mood to let myself be laughed at long," said Firmin Richard. 

 "It's harmless enough," observed Armand Moncharmin.  "What is it they really want? A box for to-night?" 

 M. Firmin Richard told his secretary to send Box Five on the grand tier to Mm. Debienne and Poligny, if it was not sold. It was not. It was sent off to them. Debienne lived at the corner of the Rue Scribe and the Boulevard des Capucines; Poligny, in the Rue Auber. O. Ghost's two letters had been posted at the Boulevard des Capucines post-office, as Moncharmin remarked after examining the envelopes. 

 "You see!" said Richard. 

 They shrugged their shoulders and regretted that two men of that age should amuse themselves with such childish tricks. 

 "They might have been civil, for all that!" said Moncharmin.  "Did you notice how they treat us with regard to Carlotta, Sorelli and Little Jammes?" 

 "Why, my dear fellow, these two are mad with jealousy! To think that they went to the expense of, an advertisement in the Revue Theatrale! Have they nothing better to do?" 

 "By the way," said Moncharmin, "they seem to be greatly interested in that little Christine Daae!" 

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