“The original?” questioned M. Binet—the author.
“It is called, I believe, ‘Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,’ and was written by Moliere.”
Somebody tittered, but that somebody was not M. Binet. He had been touched on the raw, and the look in his little eyes betrayed the fact that his bonhomme exterior covered anything but a bonhomme.
“You charge me with plagiarism,” he said at last; “with filching the ideas of Moliere.”
“There is always, of course,” said Andre-Louis, unruffled, “the alternative possibility of two great minds working upon parallel lines.”
M. Binet studied the young man attentively a moment. He found him bland and inscrutable, and decided to pin him down.
“Then you do not imply that I have been stealing from Moliere?”
“I advise you to do so, monsieur,” was the disconcerting reply.
M. Binet was shocked.
“You advise me to do so! You advise me, me, Antoine Binet, to turn thief at my age!”