Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/331

“Oblige me by taking something,” continued the painter, forcing a glass of wine on the landlord. “Now, sir,” he continued, “you sent me lately a little paper, with a picture of a lady and a pair of scales on it. It was signed Godard.”

“The lawyer’s name.”

“He writes a very bad hand; I had to get my friend here, who understands all sorts of hieroglyphics and foreign languages”—and he pointed to Colline—“to translate it for me.”

“It was a notice to quit; a precautionary measure, according to the rule in such cases.”

“Exactly. Now I wanted to have a talk with you about this very notice, for which I should like to substitute a lease. This house suits me. The stair-case is clean, the street gay, and some of my friends live near; in short, a thousand reasons attach me to these premises.”

“But,” and the landlord unfolded his receipt again, “there is the last quarter’s rent to pay.”

“We shall pay it, sir. Such is our fixed intention.”

Nevertheless, the landlord kept his eye glued to the money on the mantel-piece; and such was the steady pertinacity of his gaze that the coins seemed to move towards him of themselves.

“I am happy to have come at a time when, without inconveniencing yourself, you can settle this little affair,” he said, again producing his receipt to Marcel, who, not being able to parry the assault, again avoided it.

“You have some property in the provinces, I think,” he said.

“Very little, very little. A small house and farm in Burgundy; very trifling returns; the tenants pay so badly, and therefore,” he added, pushing forward his receipt again, “this small sum comes just in time. Sixty francs, you know.”