SCENE IV

Mr. Poitrinas was a man who loved to fînd Roman antiquities, old nails, pottery, etc. People used to think that it was a funuy idea when he said that he was gifted, that he had the scent: ail he had to do was to look at a pièce of ground, to see that there was something Roman underneath.

When he went to a house, even if he were a stranger, he was not long in asking what people found in the fields when they plowed them. Once he went to stay with a friend. He told the servant to announce him, to take his valise, which he was carrying in his hand, and asked for a room the Windows of which opened on the garden. This was in order to observe the formatioir of the ground, for he had proved that a Roman road existed at this place, and he was going to dig in the garden.

Once at home he had made some excavations in the park without warning anyone. His son fell into one of them and got a sprain, from which he never recovered, but was lame ail his life. The father consoled himself because he had found the blade of a knife belonging to the third century. But it was a pity, for the j'oung man was going to marry a girl who was pretty and well brought up, and his happiness was sacrificed to his father's fondness for something which really did not concern him.