IF YOU WISH TO LIVE IN PEACE, YOU MUST NOT BEGIN BY TAKING AWAY MY 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.