Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/165

“Unless the author is criminally convicted,” said the critic. “Wait a bit, here are some romances and some concert tickets. By setting about it skilfully you may, perhaps, make money of them.”

“I would rather have something else, a pair of trousers, for instance.”

“Come,” said the critic, take this copy of Bossuet and this plaster cast of Monsieur Odilon Barrot. On my word of honor it is the widow’s mite.”

“I see that you are doing your best,” said Rodolphe. “I will take away these treasures, but if I get thirty sous out of them I shall regard it as the thirteenth labor of Hercules.”

After having covered about four leagues Rodolphe, by the aid of an eloquence of which he had the secret on great occasions, succeeded in getting his washerwoman to lend him two francs on the volumes of poetry, the romances and the bust of Monsieur Barrot.”

“Come,” said he, as he recrossed the Seine, “here is the sauce, now I must find the dish itself. Suppose I go to my uncle.”

Half an hour later he was at his Uncle Monetti’s, who read upon his nephew’s face what was the matter. Hence he put himself on guard and forestalled any request by a series of complaints, such as:

“Times are hard, bread is dear, debtors do not pay up, rents are terribly high, commerce decaying, etc., etc.,” all the hypocritical litany of shopkeepers.

“Would you believe it,” said the uncle, “that I have been forced to borrow money from my shopman to meet a bill?

“You should have sent to me,” said Rodolphe. “I would have lent it you, I received two hundred francs three days ago.”