een mistaken in me. I am not the scoundrel you suppose me, sir,
and I will not number in my company a man who dares to suggest that I
should become one. Outrageous!"

He was very angry. His voice boomed through the little room, and the
company sat hushed and something scared, their eyes upon Andre-Louis,
who was the only one entirely unmoved by this outburst of virtuous
indignation.

"You realize, monsieur," he said, very quietly, "that you are insulting
the memory of the illustrious dead?"

"Eh?" said Binet.

Andre-Louis developed his sophistries.

"You insult the memory of Moliere, the greatest ornament of our stage,
one of the greatest ornaments of our nation, when you suggest that there
is vileness in doing that which he never hesitated to do, which no great
author yet has hesitated to do. You cannot suppose that Moliere ever
troubled himself to be original in the matter of ideas. You cannot
suppose that the stories he tells in his plays have never been told
before. They were culled, as you very well know--though you seem
momentarily to have forgotten it, and it is therefore necessary 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