dialogue, plays in the proper sense of the word, after the manner of Chénier, Eglantine, and Beaumarchais.
The fact that he dreamed such dreams shows us how very kindly he had taken to the profession into which Chance and M. Binet between them had conspired to thrust him. That he had real talent both as author and as actor I do not doubt, and I am persuaded that had things fallen out differently he would have won for himself a lasting place among French dramatists, and thus fully have realized that dream of his.
Now, dream though it was, he did not neglect the practical side of it.
"You realize," he told M. Binet, "that I have it in my power to make your fortune for you."
He and Binet were sitting alone together in the parlour of the inn at Pipriac, drinking a very excellent bottle of Volnay. It was on the night after the fourth and last performance there of "Les Fourberies." The business in Pipriac had been as excellent as in Maure and Guichen. You will have gathered this from the fact that they drank Volnay.
"I will concede it, my dear Scaramouche, so that I may hear the sequel."
"I am disposed to exercise this power if the inducement is sufficient. You will realize that for fifteen livres a month a man does not sell such exceptional gifts as mine."
"There is an alternative," said M. Binet, darkly.
"There is no alternative. Don't be a fool, Binet."
Binet sat up as if he had been prodded. Members of his company did not take this tone of direct rebuke with him.
"Anyway, I make you a present of it," Scaramouche pursued, airily. "Exercise it if you please. Step outside and inform the police that they can lay hands upon one André-Louis Moreau. But that will be the end of your fine dreams of going to Rédon, and for the first time in your life playing in a real theatre. Without me, you can't do it, and you know it; and I am not going to Rédon or anywhere else,
