Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/143

worse, I will put on a collar, and as ‘Methuselah’ buttons to the neck no one will see the color of my linen.”

“What!” said Rodolphe uneasy, “you are going to wear ‘Methuselah?’”

“Alas!” replied Marcel, I must, God wills it and my tailor too; besides it has a new set of buttons and I have just touched it up with ivory black.”

“Methuselah” was merely Marcel’s dress coat, he called it so because it was the oldest garment of his wardrobe. “Methuselah” was cut in the fashion of four years before, and was, besides, of a hideous green, but Marcel declared that it looked black by candlelight.

In five minutes Marcel was dressed, he was attired in the most perfect bad taste, the get-up of an art student going into society.

M. Casimir Bonjour will never be so surprised the day he learns his election as a member of the Institute as were Rodolphe and Marcel on reaching Mademoiselle Musette’s. This is the reason of their astonishment. Mademoiselle Musette who for some time past had fallen out with her lover the Counsellor of State, had been abandoned by him at a very critical juncture. Legal proceedings having been taken by her creditors and her landlord, her furniture had been seized and carried down into the court-yard, in order to be taken away and sold on the following day. Despite this incident Mademoiselle Musette had not for a moment the idea of giving her guests the slip and did not put off her party. She had the court-yard arranged as a drawing-room, spread a carpet on the pavement, prepared everything as usual, dressed to receive company, and invited all the tenants to her little entertainment, towards which Heaven contributed its illumination.

This jest had immense success, never had Musette’s evenings displayed such go and gaiety; they were still dancing