ong.

DANCING MASTER: Our work, yours and mine, is not trivial at
present.

MUSIC MASTER: This is true. We've found here such a man as we both
need. This is a nice source of income for us--this Monsieur
Jourdain, with the visions of nobility and gallantry that he has
gotten into his head. You and I should hope that everyone resembled
him.

DANCING MASTER: Not entirely; I could wish that he understood
better the things that we give him.

MUSIC MASTER: It's true that he understands them poorly, but he
pays well, and that's what our art needs now more than anything
else.

DANCING MASTER: As for me, I admit, I feed a little on glory.
Applause touches me; and I hold that, in all the fine arts, it is
painful to produce for dolts, to endure the barbarous opinions of a
fool about my choreography. It is a pleasure, don't tell me
otherwise, to work for people who can appreciate the fine points of
an art, who know how to give a sweet reception to the beauties of a
work and, by pleasurable approbations, gratify us for our labor.
Yes, the most agreeable recompense we can receive for the things we
do is to see them recognized and flattered by an applause that
honors us. There is nothing, in my opinion, that pays us better for
all our fatigue; and it is an exquisite delight to receive the
praises of the well-informed.

MUSIC MASTER: I agree, and I enjoy them as you do. There is surely
nothing more agreeable than the applause you speak of; but that
incense does not provide a living. Pure praises do not provide a
comfortable existence; it is necessary to add something solid, and
the best way to praise is to praise with cash-in-hand. He's a man,
it's true, whose insight is very slight, who talks nonsense about
everything and applauds only for the wrong reasons but his money
makes up for his judgments. He has discernment in his purse. His
praises are in cash, and this ignorant bourgeois is worth more to
us, as you see, than the educated nobleman who introduced us here.

DANCING MASTER: There is some truth in what you say; but I find
that you lean a little too heavily on money; and material interest
is something so base that a man of good taste should never show an
attachment to it.

MUSIC MASTER: You are ready enough to receive the money our man
gives you.

DANCING MASTER: Assuredly; but I don't place all my happiness in
it, and I could wish that together with his fortune he had some
good taste in things.

MUSIC MASTER: