"'Since you have not sufficient elevation of soul,' retorted Giblet, 'to appreciate the merits of my poetry, and to punish you for having dared to criticise my scene, I will not read to you the remainder.' 'What, I wonder, have I done, that I should have been punished by being compelled to listen to the beginning?' replied Calidas. 'It well becomes you indeed to despise my comedies! Learn that the very worst that I could write will be clever compared with anything that you can compose, and that it is much easier to inflate the cheeks with hollow sentiments and sounding words, than it is to enlighten the mind by pointed wit or a delicate irony.'
"'Thank Heaven!' exclaimed the tragic poet, with an awful expression of disdain, 'if in its rigour it denies me your esteem, I may easily console myself for my misfortune. The court, however, thinks more favourably of my tragedies; and the pension with which in its grace it has been pleased----' 'Pshaw! think not to dazzle me with your pensions,' interrupted Calidas; 'I know too well how they may be obtained to esteem your works the more for that. And to prove to you your folly, in thinking more highly of yourself than of comic authors, and that it is easier to compose serious dramas than comic pieces, I am resolved if I return to France, and do not succeed in my own line, that I will descend to making tragedies.'
"'For a scribbler of farces,' said the tragic poet, 'you are not over modest.' 'For a versifier who only owes his reputation to borrowed plumes,' replied the comic author, 'you would fain have one think rather too highly of you.' 'You are an insolent scoundrel,' exclaimed the sombre genius. 'If I were not in your room, little monsieur Calidas, the catastrophe of this adventure should teach you to respect the buskin.' 'Let not that consideration restrain you, I entreat, lanky monsieur Giblet,' replied Calidas; 'if you wish to receive a thrashing, I would as soon give it you in my own room as elsewhere.'
[Illustration: Calidas and Giblet come to blows]
"Immediately, they seized each other by the throat and hair; and kicks and cuffs were exchanged with generous ardour. An Italian, who lay in a neighbouring chamber, having listened to the overture of this drama, and hearing the noise of the incidental combat, judged that it was quite time for the spectators to assemble when the play had begun. He rose, therefore, and out of compassion for the French authors, although Italian, he filled the house with his cries. On this the Fleming and the two Germans hastened with himself in their dressing-gowns to the theatre of strife, and the piece is, as you see, just terminating by the separation of the combatants."