"Good!" I cried, "this is a joint affair! I shall find the same when I get back home. You were an idiot to play this prank!" Harel rubbed his hands together until all his joints cracked. "A fine lawsuit," he said, "an excellent lawsuit! I only ask two such per year for six years and my fortune is made!" "But you will lose the case!" "I know that, very well." "In that case it will be a bad lawsuit." "First of all, I would have you to know that a lawsuit is not necessarily a bad one because one may lose it; and if I lose it I shall appeal." "But you will lose it then, for I tell you I shall be against you." "You will say that you have nothing to do with the play, I suppose?" "I shall say that I must not be named." "Meanwhile, you will be mentioned at the Tribunal of Commerce, at the Court of Appeal, by M. Gaillardet's solicitor and by your own; the newspapers will copy the law proceedings, the three asterisks will have made the public talk when placed before the name, and will do so if they are put after it; the MSS. will be put in, M. Gaillardet's, Janin's and yours.... My dear fellow, I only reckoned upon a hundred performances; now I will bet on two hundred." "May the devil take you!" "Will you not stay to dinner with us?" "Thanks." "Yes, indeed.... Does not Georges bless you?" "Is she satisfied with her success?" "Delighted! Although you have rather sacrificed her part to Bocage, you will admit." "Good! is she also going to bring an action against me?" "She has a good mind to do so, and it might, indeed, happen, unless you promise to write a play for her." "Oh! I promise her that, if that is all she wants." "She has an idea." "It is not divorce?" Georges had been teasing me for a long time to write her a play upon the Emperor's divorce. "No, don't be anxious!" I went up and saw her. She was as beautiful as the conquering Semiramis. We greeted each other as cordially as we always do when we meet. I told her the whole story about M. Gaillardet, and I was grieved to see that she thought Harel entirely in the right. "Well, all right," I said; "let us not talk any more about it.... By the bye, what is this he tells me?" "Harel?" "Yes." "Some tomfoolery." "Exactly.... He tells me that you had an idea in your mind." "Insolent man!" "An idea for a play, be it understood. _Peste!_ You have something much better than ideas: you have your caprices." "Not with you, in any case!" "That is just what I complain of." I went on my knees before her and kissed her lovely hands. "Tell me then, Georges, shall we be held ridiculous in the eyes of posterity, for having come in contact with one another without the assistance of which Descartes talks." "Be quiet, you big animal! and go and talk such nonsense to your dear Dorval." "Oh! Dorval!... poor Dorval, I have not seen her for an age!" "Good! when you have been living door to door with her." "Precisely so! Formerly we had only one door between us! Now we have a wall."