Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/161

Crossing the street, he came across an omnibus, on the side of which was pasted a bill, with the words, “Display of Fountains at Versailles, to-day, Sunday.”

A thunderbolt falling at Rodolphe’s feet would not have produced a deeper impression upon him than the sight of this bill.

“To-day, Sunday! I had forgotten it,” he exclaimed. “I shall not be able to get any money. To-day, Sunday!!! All the spare coin in Paris is on its way to Versailles.”

However, impelled by one of those fabulous hopes to which a man always clings, Rodolphe hurried to the office of the paper, reckoning that some happy chance might have taken the cashier there.

Monsieur Boniface had, indeed, looked in for a moment, but had left at once.

“For Versailles,” said the office messenger to Rodolphe.

“Come,” said Rodolphe, “it is all over! . . . But let me see,” he thought, “my appointment is for this evening. It is noon, so I have five hours to find five francs in—twenty sous an hour, like the horses in the Bois de Boulogne. Forward.”

As he found himself in a neighborhood where the journalist, whom he styled the influential critic, resided Rodolphe thought of having a try at him.

“I am sure to find him in,” said he, as he ascended the stairs; “it is the day he writes his criticism—there is no fear of his being out. I will borrow five francs of him.”

“Hello! it’s you, is it?” said the journalist, on seeing Rodolphe. “You come at the right moment. I have a slight service to ask of you.”

“How lucky it falls out,” thought the editor of “The Scarf of Iris.”

“Were you at the Odeon Theatre last night?”

“I am always at the Odeon.”