“What way?”

“Write them first and burn them afterwards.”

“How simple! Well, I should never have discovered that. What a mind that devil of a Moliere has!” said La Fontaine. Then, striking his forehead, “Oh, thou wilt never be aught but an ass, Jean La Fontaine!” he added.

“What are you saying there, my friend?” broke in Moliere, approaching the poet, whose aside he had heard.

“I say I shall never be aught but an ass,” answered La Fontaine, with a heavy sigh and swimming eyes.

“Yes, my friend,” he added, with increasing grief, “it seems that I rhyme in a slovenly manner.”