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 afterward."

"How simple it is! Well, I should never have discovered that. What a
mind that devil 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 Pellisson; did you not, Pellisson?"

Pellisson, again lost in his work, took good care not to answer.

"But if Pellisson said you were so," cried Moliere, "Pellisson 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."

"How!" 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 had run 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
friend, but because I was told I ought to fight. So, as I have never
known any peace save since you made her acquaintance, do me the pleasure
to continue your visits as heretofore, or, morbleu! let us set to
again.' And so," continued La Fontaine, "he was compelled to resume his
friendship with madame, and I continue to be the happiest of husbands."

All burst out laughing. Moliere alone passed hi