“Planchet, do you know M.

La Fontaine?”

“The chemist at the corner of the Rue Saint-Mederic?”

“No, the writer of fables.”

“Oh! Maitre Corbeau!”

“Exactly; well, then, I am like his hare.”

“He has got a hare also, then?”

“He has all sorts of animals.”

“Well, what does his hare do, then?”

“M. La Fontaine’s hare thinks.”

“Ah, ah!”

“Planchet, I am like that hare —