Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/153

“No, indeed! I shall go to see my uncle. He is a good fellow, and will give me good advice when I tell him my new position. And you, Marcel?”

“I shall go to old Medicis to ask him if he has any restorations of pictures to give me. By the way, give me five francs.”

“For what?”

“To cross the Pont des Arts?”

“Two sous to cross a bridge when you can go over another for nothing! That is a useless expense; and, though an inconsiderable one, is a violation of our rule.”

“I am wrong, to be sure,” said Marcel. “I will take a cab and go by the Pont Neuf.”

So the two friends quitted each other in opposite directions, but somehow the different roads brought them to the same place, and they didn’t go home till morning.

Two days after, Rodolphe and Marcel were completely metamorphosed. Dressed like two bridegrooms of the best society, they were so elegant, and neat, and shining, that they hardly recognized each other when they met in the street. Still their system of enconomy was in full blast, though it was not without much difficulty that their “organization of labor” had been realized. They had taken a servant; a big fellow thirty-four years old, of Swiss descent, and about as clever as an average donkey.

But Baptiste was not born to be a servant; he had a soul above his business; and if one of his masters gave him a parcel to carry, he blushed with indignation, and sent it by a porter. However, he had some merits; for instance, he could hash hare well; and his first profession having been that of distiller, he passed much of his time—or his masters’, rather—in trying to invent a new kind of liniment; he also succeeded in the preparation of lamp-black. But