"
"How so?"
"In several ways. I might, for instance, teach Leandre to make
love."
Pantaloon burst into laughter. "You do not lack confidence in your
powers. Modesty does not afflict you."
"Therefore I evince the first quality necessary in an actor."
"Can you act?"
"Upon occasion, I think," said Andre-Louis, his thoughts upon his
performance at Rennes and Nantes, and wondering when in all his
histrionic career Pantaloon's improvisations had so rent the heart
of mobs.
M. Binet was musing. "Do you know much of the theatre?" quoth he.
"Everything," said Andre-Louis.
"I said that modesty will prove no obstacle in your career."
"But consider. I know the work of Beaumarchais, Eglantine, Mercier,
Chenier, and many others of our contemporaries. Then I have read, of
course, Moliere, Racine, Corneille, besides many other lesser French
writers. Of foreign authors, I am intimate with the works of Gozzi,
Goldoni, Guarini, Bibbiena, Machiavelli, Secchi, Tasso, Ariosto, and
Fedini. Whilst of those of antiquity I know most of the work of
Euripides, Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus.
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