OCT. Ah! my dear Scapin, I am in despair; I am lost; I am the most unfortunate of mortals. SCA. How is that? OCT. Don't you know anything of what has happened to me? SCA. No. OCT. My father is just returning with Mr. Géronte, and they want to marry me. SCA. Well, what is there so dreadful about that? OCT. Alas! you don't know what cause I have to be anxious. SCA. No; but it only depends on you that I should soon know; and I am a man of consolation, a man who can interest himself in the troubles of young people. OCT. Ah! Scapin, if you could find some scheme, invent some plot, to get me out of the trouble I am in, I should think myself indebted to you for more than life. SCA. To tell you the truth, there are few things impossible to me when I once set about them. Heaven has bestowed on me a fair enough share of genius for the making up of all those neat strokes of mother wit, for all those ingenious gallantries to which the ignorant and vulgar give the name of impostures; and I can boast, without vanity, that there have been very few men more skilful than I in expedients and intrigues, and who have acquired a greater reputation in the noble profession. But, to tell the truth, merit is too ill rewarded nowadays, and I have given up everything of the kind since the trouble I had through a certain affair which happened to me. OCT. How? What affair, Scapin? SCA. An adventure in which justice and I fell out. OCT. Justice and you? SCA. Yes; we had a trifling quarrel. SIL. You and justice? SCA. Yes. She used me very badly; and I felt so enraged against the ingratitude of our age that I determined never to do anything for anybody. But never mind; tell me about yourself all the same. OCT. You know, Scapin, that two months ago Mr. Géronte and my father set out together on a voyage, about a certain business in which they are both interested. SCA. Yes, I know that. OCT. And that both Léandre and I were left by our respective fathers, I under the management of Silvestre, and Léandre under your management. SCA. Yes; I have acquitted myself very well of my charge. OCT. Some time afterwards Léandre met with a young gipsy girl, with whom he fell in love. SCA. I know that too. OCT. As we are great friends, he told me at once of his love, and took me to see this young girl, whom I thought good-looking, it is true, but not so beautiful as he would have had me believe. He never spoke of anything but her; at every opportunity he exaggerated her grace and her beauty, extolled her intelligence, spoke to me with transport of the charms of her conversation, and related to me her most insignificant saying, which he always wanted me to think the cleverest thing in the world. He often found fault with me for not thinking as highly as he imagined I ought to do of the things he related to me, and blamed me again and again for being so insensible to the power of love. SCA. I do not see what you are aiming at in all this.