Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/164

“Why?”

“To fill a couple of lines. Good, now it is finished,” said the influential critic, summoning his servant to take the article to the printers.

“And now,” thought Rodolphe, “let us strike home.” And he gravely proposed his request.

“Ah! my dear fellow,” said the critic, “I have not a sou in the place. Lolotte ruins me in pommade, and just now she stripped me of my last copper to go to Versailles and see the Nereids and the brazen monsters spout forth floods.”

“To Versailles. But it is an epidemic!” exclaimed Rodolphe.

“But why do you want money?”

“This is my story,” replied Rodolphe; “I have at five this evening an appointment with a lady, a very well-bred lady who never goes out save in an omnibus. I wish to unite my fortunes with hers for a few days, and it appears to me the right thing to enable her to take the pleasures of this life. For dinner, dances, etc., etc., I must have five francs, and if 1 do not find them French literature is dishonored in my person.

“Why don’t you borrow the sum of the lady herself?” exclaimed the critic.

“The first time of meeting, it is hardly possible. Only you can get me out of this fix.”

“By all the mummies of Egypt I give you my word of honor that I have not enough to buy a sou pipe. However, I have some books that you can sell.”

“Impossible to-day, Mother Mansut’s, Lebigre’s and all the shops on the quays and in the Rue Saint Jacques are closed. What books are they? Volumes of poetry with a portrait of the author in spectacles? But such things never sell.”