Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/134

manor-houses, he wants me to do him a Bombardment of Tangiers.”

“Our reputations are ruined for ever if we do not give this party,” murmured Rodolphe. “What will my friend, the influential eritic, think if I make him put on a white tie and yellow kids for nothing?”

And both went back to the studio, a prey to great uneasiness.

At that moment the clock of a neighbor struck four.

“We have only three hours before us,” said Rodolphe despondingly.

“But,” said Marcel, going up to his friend, “are you quite sure, certain sure, that we have no money left anywhere hereabout? Eh?”

“Neither here, nor elsewhere. Where do you suppose it could come from?”

“If we looked under the furniture; in the stuffing of the arm-chairs? They say that the emigrant noblemen used to hide their treasures in the days of Robespierre. Who can tell? perhaps our arm-chair belonged to an emigrant nobleman; and, besides, it is so hard that the idea has often occurred to me that it must be stuffed with metal. Will you dissect it?”

“This is mere comedy,” replied Rodolphe, in a tone in which severity was mingled with indulgence.

Suddenly Marcel, who had gone on rummaging in every corner of the studio, uttered a loud cry of triumph.

“We are saved!” he exclaimed. “I was sure that there was money here. Behold!” and he showed Rodolphe a coin as large as a crown piece, and half eaten away by rust and verdigris.

It was a Carlovingian coin of some artistic value. The legend, happily intact, showed the date of Charlemagne’s reign.