Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/185

“Well, have you got a hundred francs to lend me?”

“What! you too!” exclaimed Schaunard, in the height of astonishment. “You have come to ask me for money! You, in the ranks of my enemies!”

“I will pay you back on Monday.”

“Or at the Greek Calends. My dear fellow, you surely forget what day it is. I can do nothing for you. But there is no reason to despair; the day is not yet over. You may still meet with Providence, who never gets up before noon.”

“Ah!” replied Rodolphe, “Providence has too much to do looking after little birds. I will go and see Marcel.”

Marcel was then residing in the Rue de Bréda. Rodolphe found him in a very downcast mood, contemplating his great picture that was to represent the passage of the Red Sea.

“What is the matter?” asked Rodolphe, as he entered. “You seem quite in the dumps.”

“Alas!” replied the painter, in allegorical language, “for the last fortnight it has been Holy Week.”

“Red herrings and black radishes. Good; I remember. Indeed, Rodolphe’s memory was still salt with the remembrance of a time when he had been reduced to the exclusive consumption of the fish in question.

“The deuce,” said he, “that is serious. I came to borrow a hundred francs of you.”

“A hundred francs,” said Marcel. “You are always in the clouds. The idea of coming and asking me for that mythological amount at a period when one is always under the equator of necessity. You must have been taking hasheesh.”

“Alas!” said Rodolphe, “I have not been taking anything at all.”

And he left his friend on the banks of the Red Sea.