Chapter IV Box Five
Armand Moncharmin wrote such voluminous Memoirs during the fairly long
period of his co-management that we may well ask if he ever found
time to attend to the affairs of the Opera otherwise than by telling
what went on there. M. Moncharmin did not know a note of music,
but he called the minister of education and fine arts by his
Christian name, had dabbled a little in society journalism and enjoyed
a considerable private income. Lastly, he was a charming fellow
and showed that he was not lacking in intelligence, for, as soon as he
made up his mind to be a sleeping partner in the Opera, he selected
the best possible active manager and went straight to Firmin Richard.
Firmin Richard was a very distinguished composer, who had published
a number of successful pieces of all kinds and who liked nearly every
form of music and every sort of musician. Clearly, therefore, it was
the duty of every sort of musician to like M. Firmin Richard.
The only things to be said against him were that he was rather
masterful in his ways and endowed with a very hasty temper.
The first few days which the partners spent at the Opera were given
over to the delight of finding themselves the head of so magnificent
an enterprise; and they had forgotten all about that curious,
fantastic story of the ghost, when an incident occurred that
proved to them that the joke--if joke it were--was not over.
M. Firmin Richard reached his office that morning at eleven
o'clock. His secretary, M. Remy, showed him half a dozen letters
which he had not opened because they were marked "private."
One of the letters had at once attracted Richard's attention not
only because the envelope was addressed in red ink, but because he
seemed to have seen the writing before. He soon rememberd that it
was the red handwriting in which the memorandum-book had been
so curiously completed. He recognized the clumsy childish hand.
He opened the letter and read: