But the dressing room was too small to accommodate everybody, and it became necessary to crowd up anyhow, Satin and Mme Jules standing back against the curtain at the end and the men clustering closely round the half-naked Nana.

The three actors still had on the costumes they had been wearing in the second act, and while Prulliere took off his Alpine admiral's cocked hat, the huge plume of which would have knocked the ceiling, Bosc, in his purple cloak and tinware crown, steadied himself on his tipsy old legs and greeted the prince as became a monarch receiving the son of a powerful neighbor.

The glasses were filled, and the company began clinking them together.
"I drink to Your Highness!" said ancient Bosc royally.
"To the army!" added Prulliere.
"To Venus!" cried Fontan.
The prince complaisantly poised his glass, waited quietly, bowed thrice and murmured: "Madame! Admiral! Your Majesty!" Then he drank it off.

Count Muffat and the Marquis de Chouard had followed his example.

There was no more jesting now--the company were at court.