Roscius enters onto the stage with much grace: it's true, Lélie; I will also agree that his legs are well shaped, that he acts well and major roles, and that to recite perfectly, he only needs to open his mouth, as people say; but is he the only actor who is charming in everything he does? and what he does, is it the noblest and most honest thing a person can do? Moreover, Roscius cannot be yours, he belongs to someone else; and when this engagement ends, he is already claimed by another still: Claudie waits for him to become tired of Messaline so that she can have him. Take Bathylle, Lélie: where will you find, I don't say in the order of knights who you disdain, but among the very actors of farces, a young man who can jump so high when he dances, and who does a better capriole? Would you like the jumper, Cobus, who, throwing his feet before him, turns once in the air before coming back to the ground? Did you know that he is no longer young? As for Bathylle, you will say, the crowd around him is too great, and he refuses more women than he can gratify; but you still have Dracon, the flute player: no one else in his profession swells his cheeks as decently as he does when he plays the oboe or the flageolet, because the number of instruments he can play is endless; moreover, he's amusing and even makes children and young women laugh. Who eats and drinks better than Dracon in a single meal? He gets a whole company drunk, and himself last. You sigh, Lélie: is it because Dracon has already chosen someone, or because someone has been hindering you? Is he finally engaged to Césonie, who has run after him for so long, who has sacrificed a great mob of lovers for him, I would even say the flower of young Romans? to Césonie, who is from a patrician family, who is so young, so beautiful, and so earnest? I am sorry for you, Lélie, if you have been infected with this new taste that roman women have for what people call public men, who expose themselves for work to the sight of others. What will you do, since the best men of this type have already been taken? Bronte is still left, who works torturing people on the rack: people can't stop talking about his strength and skill; he is a young man with broad shoulders and brawny, a negroe moreover, a black man.