“And I have made a hundred thousand such rhymes in my time.”

“A hundred thousand!” cried La Fontaine.

“Four times as many as ‘La Pucelle,’ which M. Chaplain is meditating. Is it also on this subject, too, that you have composed a hundred thousand verses?”

“Listen to me, you eternally absent-minded creature,” said Moliere.

“It is certain,” continued La Fontaine, “that legume, for instance, rhymes with posthume.”

“In the plural, above all.”

“Yes, above all in the plural, seeing that then it rhymes not with three letters, but with four; as orniere does with lumiere.”