that I should remind you — they were culled, many of them, from the Italian authors, who themselves had culled them Heaven alone knows where.  Moliere took those old stories and retold them in his own language.  That is precisely what I am suggesting that you should do.  Your company is a company of improvisers.  You supply the dialogue as you proceed, which is rather more than Moliere ever attempted.  You may, if you prefer it — though it would seem to me to be yielding to an excess of scruple
 — go straight to Boccaccio or Sacchetti.  But even then you cannot be sure that you have reached the sources.”

Andre-Louis came off with flying colours after that.  You see what a debater was lost in him; how nimble he was in the art of making white look black.  The company was impressed, and no one more that M. Binet, who found himself supplied with a crushing argument against those who in future might tax him with the impudent plagiarisms which he undoubtedly perpetrated.  He retired in the best order he could from the position he had taken up at the outset.

“So that you think,” he said, at the end of a long outburst of agreement, “you think that our story of ‘The Heartless Father’ could be enriched by dipping into ‘Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,’ to which I confess upon reflection that it may present certain superficial resemblances?”

“I do; most certainly I do — always provided that you do so judiciously.  Times have changed since Moliere.”  It was as a consequence of this that Binet retired soon after, taking Andre-Louis with him.  The pair sat together late that night, and were again in close communion throughout the whole of Sunday morning.

After dinner M. Binet read to the assembled company the amended and amplified canevas of “The Heartless Father,” which, acting upon the advice of M. Parvissimus, he had been at great pains to prepare.  The company had few doubts as to the real authorship before he began to read; none at all when he had read.  There was a verve, a grip about this story; and, what was more, those of them who knew their Moliere realized that far from approaching the original more closely, this canevas had drawn farther away from it.  Moliere’s original part — the title role — had dwindled into insignificance, to the great disgust of Polichinelle, to whom it fell.  But the other parts had all been built up into importance, with the exception of Leandre, who remained as before.  The two great roles were now Scaramouche, in the character of the intriguing Sbrigandini, and Pantaloon the father.  There was, too, a comical part for Rhodomont, as the roaring bully hired by Polichinelle to cut Leandre into ribbons.  And in view of the importance now of Scaramouche, the play had been rechristened “Figaro-Scaramouche.”

This last had not been without a deal of opposition from M. Binet.  But his relentless collaborator, who was in reality the real author — drawing shamelessly, but practically at last upon his great store of reading — had overborne him.