in your 'Fables.'"

"And to begin," continued La Fontaine, following up his idea, "I will go
and burn a hundred verses I have just made."

"Where are your verses?"

"In my head."

"Well, if they are in your head you cannot burn them."

"True," said La Fontaine; "but if I do not burn them--"

"Well, what will happen if you do not burn them?"

"They will remain in my mind, and I shall never forget them!"

"The deuce!" cried Loret; "what a dangerous thing! One would go mad with
it!"

"The deuce! the deuce!" repeated La Fontaine; "what can I do?"

"I have discovered the way," said Moliere, who had entered just at this
point of the conversation.

"What way?"

"Write them first and burn them afterwards."

"How simple! Well, I should never have discovered that. What a mind that
devil of a Moliere has!" said La Fontaine. Then, striking his forehead,
"Oh, thou wilt never be aught but an ass, Jean La Fontaine!" he added.

"_What_ are you saying there, my friend?" broke in Moliere, approaching
the poet, whose aside he had heard.

"I say I shall never be aught but an ass," answered La Fontaine, with
a heavy sigh and swimming eyes. "Yes, my friend," he added, with
increasing grief, "it seems that I rhyme in a slovenly manner."

"Oh, 'tis wrong to say so."

"Nay, I am a poor creature!"

"Who said so?"

"_Parbleu!_ 'twas Pelisson; did you not, Pelisson?"

Pelisson, again absorbed in his work, took good care not to answer.

"But if Pelisson said you were so," cried Moliere, "Pelisson has
seriously offended you."

"Do you think so?"

"Ah! I advise you, as you are a gentleman, not to leave an insult like
that unpunished."

"_What!_" exclaimed La Fontaine.

"Did you ever fight?"

"Once only, with a lieutenant in the light horse."

"What wrong had he done you?"

"It seems he ran away with my wife."

"Ah, ah!" said Moliere, becoming slightly pale; but as, at La Fontaine's
declaration, the others had turned round, Moliere kept upon his lips the
rallying smile which had so nearly died away, and continuing to make La
Fontaine speak--

"And what was the result of the duel?"

"The result was, that on the ground my opponent disarmed me, and then
made an apology, promising never again to set foot in my house."

"And you considered yourself satisfied?" said Moliere.

"Not at all! on the contrary, I picked up my sword. 'I beg your pardon,
monsieur,' I said, 'I have not fought you because you were my wife's