Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/274

muse remain idle, I would willingly put a railway-guide into verse. When one has a lyre it is meant to be made use of. And then Mimi has a burning thirst for boots.”

“Then,” said Schaunard, “you will not be offended with me when you know the source of that Pactolus, the overflowing of which I am awaiting.”

The following is the history of Schaunard’s two hundred francs:

About a fortnight before he had gone into the shop of a music-publisher who had promised to procure him amongst his customers pupils for pianoforte lessons or pianofortes to tune.

“By Jove!” said the publisher, on seeing him enter the shop, “you are just in time. A gentleman has been here who wants a pianist; he is an Englishman, and will probably pay well. Are you really a good one?”

Schaunard reflected that a modest air might injure him in the publisher’s estimation. Indeed, a modest musician, and especially a modest pianist, is a rare creature. Accordingly he replied boldly:

“I am a first-rate one; if I only had a lung gone, long hair, and a black coat, I should be famous as the sun in the heavens; and instead of asking me eight hundred francs to engrave my composition ‘The Death of the Damsel,’ you would come on your knees to offer me three thousand for it on a silver plate.”

The person whose address Schaunard took was an Englishman, named Birne.^[1] The musician was first received by a servant in blue, who handed him over to a servant in green, who passed him on to a servant in black, who introduced him into a drawing-room, where he found himself