h fifteen louis? Hasn't he left you something
worth twenty times as much?"

M. Binet gaped uncomprehending.

"You are between two wines, I think. You've been drinking," he
concluded.

"So I have--at the fountain of Thalia. Oh, don't you see? Don't you see
the treasure that Cordemais has left behind him?"

"What has he left?"

"A unique idea for the groundwork of a scenario. It unfolds itself all
before me. I'll borrow part of the title from Moliere. We'll call it
'Les Fourberies de Scaramouche,' and if we don't leave the audiences of
Maure and Pipriac with sides aching from laughter I'll play the dullard
Pantaloon in future."

Polichinelle smacked fist into palm. "Superb!" he said, fiercely. "To
cull fortune from misfortune, to turn loss into profit, that is to have
genius."

Scaramouche made a leg. "Polichinelle, you are a fellow after my own
heart. I love a man who can discern my merit. If Pantaloon had half
your wit, we should have Burgundy to-night in spite of the flight of
Cordemais."

"Burgundy?" roared M. Binet, and before he could get farther Harlequin
had clapped his hands together.

"That is the spirit, M. Binet. You heard him, landlady. He called for
Burgundy."

"I called for nothing of the kind."

"But you heard him, dear madame. We all heard him."

The others made chorus, whilst Scaramouche smiled at him, and patted his
shoulder.

"Up, man, a little courage. Did you not say that fortune awaits us? And
have we not now the wherewithal to constrain fortune? Burgundy, then,
to... to toast 'Les Fourberies de Scaramouche.'"

And M. Binet, who was not blind to the force of the idea, yielded, took
courage, and got drunk with the rest.

CHAPTER VI. CLIMENE

Diligent search among the many scenarios of the improvisers which have
survived their day, has failed to bring to light the scenario of "Les
Fourberies de Scaramouche," upon which we are told the fortunes of the
Binet troupe came to be soundly established. They played it for the
first time at Maure in the following week, with Andre-Louis--who was
known by now as Scaramouche to all the company, and to the public
alike--in the title-role. If he had acquitted himself well as
Figaro-Scaramouche, he excelled himself in the new piece, the scenario
of which would appear to be very much the better of the two.

After Maure came Pipriac, where four performances were given, two
of each of the scenarios that now formed the backbone of the Bine