"What is it, M. Lafond?"
"Act my part before me."
"Oh, M. Lafond...."
"I beg you to do it; I shall really be extremely obliged to you."
"The deuce!" said Colson. "If you really wish it...."
"Yes, I do wish it."
Colson yielded, and began Orosmane's tirade—
"Vertueuse Zaire, avant que l'hyménée...."
and declaimed it from the first line to the last, with such fidelity of imitation that one might have thought Lafond himself were declaiming.
Lafond listened to the end with the deepest attention, nodding his head up and down and expressing his approbation by frequent and obvious signs.