Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/222

with a sandy-haired cat, whilst a young woman was laying the table.

“Gentlemen,” said Rodolphe, shaking his friends’ hands, and indicating the young lady, “allow me to introduce you to the mistress of the household.”

“You are the household, are you not?” said Colline, who had a mania for this kind of joke.

“Mimi,” replied Rodolphe, “I present my best friends; now go and get the soup ready.”

“Oh, madame,” said Alexander Schaunard, hastening towards Mimi, “you are as fresh as a wild flower.”

After having satisfied himself that there were really plates on the table, Schaunard asked what they were going to have to eat. He even carried his curiosity so far as to lift up the covers of the stewpans in which the dinner was cooking. The presence of a lobster produced a lively impression upon him.

As to Colline, he had drawn Rodolphe aside to ask about his philosophical article.

“My dear fellow, it is at the printer’s. ‘The Beaver’ appears next Thursday.”

We give up the task of depicting the philosopher’s delight.

“Gentlemen,” said Rodolphe to his friends, “I ask your pardon for leaving you so long without any news of me, but I was spending my honeymoon.” And he narrated the story of his union with the charming creature who had brought him as a dowry her eighteen years and a half, two porcelain cups, and a sandy-haired cat named Mimi, like herself.

“Come, gentlemen,” said Rodolphe, “we are going to celebrate my house-warming. I forewarn you, though, that we are about to have merely a family repast; truffles will be replaced by frank cordiality.”