Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/163

opinions upon tragedy, but I have printed them three times in ‘The Beaver’ and ‘The Scarf of Iris.’”

“No matter, how many lines do your opinions fill?”

“Forty lines.”

“The deuce, you have strong opinions. Well, lend me your forty lines.”

“Good,” thought Rodolphe, “if I turn out twenty francs’ worth of copy for him he cannot refuse me five. 1 must warn you,” said he to the critic, “that my opinions are not quite novel. They are rather worn at the elbows. Before printing them I yelled them in every café in Paris, there is not a waiter who does not know them by heart.”

“What does that matter to me? You surely do not know me. Is there anything new in the world except virtue?”

“Here you are,” said Rodolphe, as he finished.

“Thunder and tempests, there is still nearly a column wanting. How is this chasm to be filled?” exclaimed the critic. “Since you are here, supply me with some paradoxes.”

“I have not any about me,” said Rodolphe, “though I can lend you some. Only they are not mine, I bought them for half a franc from one of my friends who was in distress. They have seen very little use as yet.”

“Very good,” said the critic.

“Ah!” said Rodolphe to himself, setting to write again. “I shall certainly ask him for ten francs, just now paradoxes are as dear as partridges.” And he wrote some thirty lines containing nonsense about pianos, gold-fish and Rhine wine, which was called a toilet-wine just as we speak of toilet vinegar.

“It is very good,” said the critic. “Now do me the favor to add that the place where one meets more honest folk than anywhere eles in the world is the galleys.”