The Commissary. Pas de plaisanterie, monsieur!
The Arethusa. Well, sir, oblige me at least by looking at this book. Here, I open it with my eyes shut. Read one of these songs—read this one—and tell me, you who are a man of intelligence, if it would be possible to sing it at a fair?
The Commissary (critically). Mais oui. Très bien.
The Arethusa. Comment, monsieur! What! But do you not observe it is antique. It is difficult to understand, even for you and me; but for the audience at a fair, it would be meaningless.
The Commissary (taking a pen). Enfin, il faui en finir. What is your name?
The Arethusa (speaking with the swallowing vivacity of the English). Robert-Louis-Stev’ns’n.
The Commissary (aghast). Hé! Quoi?
The Arethusa (perceiving and improving his advantage). Rob’rt-Lou’s-Stev’ns’n.
The Commissary (after several conflicts with his pen). Eh bien, il faut se passer du nom. Ca ne s’écrit pas. (Well, we must do without the name: it is unspellable.)
The above is a rough summary of this momentous conversation, in which I have been chiefly careful to preserve the plums of the Commissary; but the remainder of the scene, perhaps because of his rising anger, has left but little definite in the memory of the Arethusa. The Commissary was not, I think, a practised literary man; no sooner, at least, had he taken pen in hand and embarked on the composition of the procès-verbal, than he became distinctly more uncivil and began to show a predilection for that simplest of all forms of repartee: “You lie!” Several times the Arethusa let it pass, and then suddenly flared up, refused to accept more insults or to answer further questions, defied the Commissary to do his worst, and promised him, if he did, that he should bitterly repent it. Perhaps if he had worn this proud front from the first, instead of beginning with a sense of entertainment and then going on to argue, the thing might have turned otherwise; for even at this eleventh hour the Commissary was visibly staggered. But it was too late; he had been challenged the procès-verbal was begun; and he again squared his elbows over his writing, and the Arethusa was led forth a prisoner.