Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/136

as he saw Rodolphe had already seized on the famous black swallow-tail, he called out to him, “Stop a bit; there are some odds and ends in the pockets.”

Colline’s swallow-tail deserves a word or two. In the first place, it was of a decided blue, and it was from habit that Colline spoke of it as “my black swallow-tail.” And as he was the only one of the band owning a dress coat, his friends were likewise in the habit of saying, when speaking of the philosopher’s official garment, “Colline’s black swallow-tail.” In addition to this, this famous garment had a special cut, the oddest imaginable. The tails, very long, and attached to a very short waist, had two pockets, positive gulfs, in which Colline was accustomed to store some thirty of the volumes which he eternally carried about with him. This caused his friends to remark that during the time that the public libraries were closed, savants and literary men could go and refer to the skirts of Colline’s swallow-tail—a library always open.

That day, extraordinary to relate, Colline’s swallow-tail only contained a quarto volume of Bayle, a treatise on the hyperphysical faculties in three volumes, a volume of Condillac, two of Swedenborg and Pope’s “Essay on Man.” When he had cleared his bookcase-garment, he allowed Rodolphe to clothe himself in it.

“Hello!” said the latter, “the left pocket still feels very heavy; you have left something in it.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Colline, “that is so. I forgot to empty the foreign languages pocket.”

And he took out from this two Arabic grammars, a Malay dictionary, and a Stock-breeders’ Manual in Chinese, his favorite reading.

When Rodolphe returned home he found Marcel playing pitch-and-toss with three five-franc pieces. At first