Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/155

“But I assure you,” said Marcel, “I have no money.”

“Can there be no more? It is impossible! We can’t have spent five hundred francs in eight days, especially living with the most rigid economy as we have done, and confining ourselves to absolute necessaries: [absolute superfluities, he should have said]. We must look over our accounts; and we shall find where the mistake is.”

“Yes, but we shan’t find where the money is. However, let us see the account-book, at any rate.”

And this is the way they kept their accounts, which had been begun under the auspices of Saint Economy:

“March 19. Received 500 francs. Paid, a Turkish pipe, 25 fr.; dinner, 15 fr.; sundries, 40 fr.”

“What are those sundries?” asked Rodolphe of Marcel, who was reading.

“You know very well,” replied the other: “that night when we didn’t go home till morning. We saved fuel and candles by that.”

“Well, afterwards?”

“‘March 20. Breakfast, 1 fr. 50 c.; tobacco, 20 c.; dinner, 2 fr.; an opera-glass, 2 fr. 50 c.”—that goes to your account. What did you want a glass for? You see perfectly well.”

“You know I had to give an account of the Exhibition in the ‘Scarf of Iris.’ It is impossible to criticize paintings without a glass. The expense is quite legitimate. Well ?—”

“A bamboo-cane—”

“Ah, that goes to your account,” said Rodolphe. “You didn’t want a cane.”

“That is all we spent the 20th,” was Marcel’s only answer. “The 21st we breakfasted out, dined out, and supped out.”

“We ought not to have spent much that day.”

“Not much, in fact—hardly thirty francs.”