Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/127

sir and neighbor, will you do me the honor to dine and spend the evening with me?”

“Alas!” answered Rodolphe, “though your invitation is like opening heaven to me, it is impossible to accept it. As I had the honor to tell you, I am shut up here by my uncle, Monsieur Monetti, stove-maker and chimney-doctor, whose secretary I now am.”

“You shall dine with me for all that,” replied Sidonia. “Listen: I shall re-enter my room, and tap on the ceiling. Look where I strike, and you will find the traces of a trap which used to be there, and has since been fastened up. Find the means of removing the piece of wood which closes the hole, and then, although we are each in our own room, we shall be as good as together.”

Rodolphe went to work at once. In five minutes a communication was established between the two rooms.

“It is a very little hole,” said he, “but there will always be room enough to pass you my heart.”

“Now,” said Sidonia, “ we will go to dinner. Set your table, and I will pass you the dishes.”

Rodolphe let down his turban by a string, and brought it back laden with eatables; then the poet and actress proceeded to dine—on their respective floors. Rodolphe devoured the pie with his teeth, and Sidonia with his eyes.

“Thanks to you, mademoiselle,” he said, when their repast was finished, “ my stomach is satisfied. Can you not also satisfy the void of my heart, which has been so long empty?”

“Poor fellow!” said Sidonia; and climbing on a piece of furniture, she liffed up her hand to Rodolphe’s lips, who gloved it with kisses.

“What a pity,” he exclaimed, “ you can’t do as St. Denis, who had the privilege of carrying his head in his hands!”

To the dinner succeeded a sentimental literary conversa-