asked La Fontaine.

“What! absent-minded as usual! Why, it was you who told us the small estate at Corbeli was going to be sold by one of M. Fouquet’s creditors; and you, also, who proposed that all his friends should subscribe — more than that, it was you who said that you would sell a corner of your house at Chateau-Thierry, in order to furnish your own proportion, and you come and ask — ’The payment of what?’“

This remark was received with a general laugh, which made La Fontaine blush. “I beg your pardon,” he said, “I had not forgotten it; oh, no! only — ”

“Only you remembered nothing about it,” replied Loret.

“That is the truth, and the fact is, he is quite right, there is a great difference between forgetting and not remembering.”