y were
walking back to the inn after the performance.

"Possibly it could have been worse; probably it could not," said he.

In sheer amazement M. Binet checked in his stride, and turned to look at
his companion.

"Huh!" said he. "Dieu de Dien! But you are frank."

"An unpopular form of service among fools, I know."

"Well, I am not a fool," said Binet.

"That is why I am frank. I pay you the compliment of assuming
intelligence in you, M. Binet."

"Oh, you do?" quoth M. Binet. "And who the devil are you to assume
anything? Your assumptions are presumptuous, sir." And with that he
lapsed into silence and the gloomy business of mentally casting up his
accounts.

But at table over supper a half-hour later he revived the topic.

"Our latest recruit, this excellent M. Parvissimus," he announced, "has
the impudence to tell me that possibly our comedy could have been worse,
but that probably it could not." And he blew out his great round cheeks
to invite a laugh at the expense of that foolish critic.

"That's bad," said the swarthy and sardonic Polichinelle. He was
grave as Rhadamanthus pronouncing judgment. "That's bad. But what is
infinitely worse is that the audience had the impudence to be of the
same mind."

"An ignorant pack of clods," sneered Leandre, with a toss of his
handsome head.

"You are wrong," quoth Harlequin. "You were born for love, my dear, not
criticism."

Leandre--a dull dog, as you will have conceived--looked contemptuously
down upon the little man. "And you, what were you born for?" he
wondered.

"Nobody knows," was the candid admission. "Nor yet why. It is the case
of many of us, my dear, believe me."

"But why"--M. Binet took him up, and thus spoilt the beginnings of a very
pretty quarrel--"why do you say that Leandre is wrong?"

"To be general, because he is always wrong. To be particular, because I
judge the audience of Guichen to be too sophisticated for 'The Heartless
Father.'"

"You would put it more happily," interposed Andre-Louis--who was the
cause of this discussion--"if you said that 'The Heartless Father' is too
unsophisticated for the audience of Guichen."

"Why, what's the difference?" asked Leandre.

"I didn't imply a difference. I merely suggested that it is a happier
way to express the fact."

"The gentleman is being subtle," sneered Binet.

"Why happier?" Harlequin demanded.

"Because it is easier to bring 'The Heartless Father' to the
sophistication of t