After his fame had grown to greatness Lemaitre reappeared on the classic stage of the Odeon, the scene of his earliest efforts. Here he played a number of parts, including Othello. But the actor had in his mind an idea which haunted him. It was that his favorite role of Robert Macaire had not had all the development of which it was capable. He associated with himself two authors, Antier and Saint-Amant, who accepted his ideas and wove them into a new play under his direction, bearing the name of his thieving hero. The success the piece achieved was something prodigious. All Paris ran to see it, and it was played for an unparalleled length of time. Lemaitre was so in love with the part that he used often to play it off the stage. Thus, one day at the Cafe de Malte they brought him his bill after breakfast. He arose, threw ten francs on the counter, and was leaving. "But the bill is ten francs fifty," said the cafe-master. "Very good," said Lemaitre: "the fifty centimes are for the garcon." The stage and caricature have since dressed up this _mot_ in various forms, but Lemaitre was its first publisher. During this same winter of 1836 he was skating one afternoon on the basin in the Luxembourg garden, where he was the object of great admiration for his graceful evolutions. Presently one of a group of women, as he passed near, recognized him and cried out, "My fifteen francs, Monsieur Frederic: have you forgotten my fifteen francs?" The actor stopped. The woman was his former hostess of the Latin quarter, with whom he had lived in the days of his impecuniosity during his first connection with the Odeon. Putting on the air of Robert Macaire, Lemaitre replied, "Your fifteen francs, madam? You are mighty impertinent. Under the alcove in my room I left an old wig. That wig cost me thirty-five francs: you owe me a louis. I will send for it to-morrow." And he skated calmly away. Next day, however, the hostess received her due.