Part 53 (1/2)

”Get along with you, M'sieur Muller,” she said. ”You're always playing the _farceur_! The parcel was brought by a man who looked like a stonemason.”

”And n.o.body has called?”

”n.o.body, except M'sieur Richard.”

”Monsieur Richard's visits are always gratifying and delightful--may the _diable_ fly away with him!” said Muller. ”What did dear Monsieur Richard want to-day, Madame Duphot?”

”He wanted to see you, and the third-floor gentleman also--about the rent.”

”Dear Richard! What an admirable memory he has for dates! Did he leave any message, Madame Duphot?”

The old woman looked at me, and hesitated.

”He says, M'sieur Muller--he says ...”

”Nay, this gentleman is a friend--you may speak out. What does our beloved and respected _proprietaire_ say, Madame Duphot?”

”He says, if you don't both of you pay up the arrears by midday on Sunday next, he'll seize your goods, and turn you into the street.”

”Ah, I always said he was the nicest man I knew!” observed Muller, gravely. ”Anything else, Madame Duphot?”

”Only this, Monsieur Muller--that if you didn't go quietly, he'd take your windows out of the frames and your doors off the hinges.”

”_Comment_! He bade you give me that message, the miserable old son of a spider! _Quatre-vingt mille plats de diables aux truffes_! Take my windows out of the frames, indeed! Let him try, Madame Duphot--that's all--let him try!”

And with this, Muller, in a towering rage, led the way upstairs, muttering volleys of the most extraordinary and eccentric oaths of his own invention, and leaving the little old _portiere_ grinning maliciously in the hall.

”But can't you pay him?” said I.

”Whether I can, or can't, it seems I must,” he replied, kicking open the door of his studio as viciously as if it were the corporeal frame of Monsieur Richard. ”The only question is--how? At the present moment, I haven't five francs in the till.”

”Nor have I more than twenty. How much is it?”

”A hundred and sixty--worse luck!”

”Haven't the Tapottes paid for any of their ancestors yet?”

”Confound it!--yes; they've paid for a Marshal of France and a Farmer General, which are all I've yet finished and sent home. But there was the washerwoman, and the _traiteur_, and the artist's colorman, and, _enfin_, the devil to pay--and the money's gone, somehow!”

”I've only just cleared myself from a lot of debts,” I said, ruefully, ”and I daren't ask either my father or Dr. Cheron for an advance just at present. What is to be done?”

”Oh, I don't know. I must raise the money somehow. I must sell something--there's my copy of t.i.tian's 'Pietro Aretino.' It's worth eighty francs, if only for a sign. And there's a Madonna and Child after Andrea del Sarto, worth a fortune to any enterprising sage-femme with artistic proclivities. I'll try what Nebuchadnezzar will do for me.”

”And who, in the name of all that's Israelitish, is Nebuchadnezzar?”

”Nebuchadnezzar, my dear Arbuthnot, is a worthy Shylock of my acquaintance--a gentleman well known to Bohemia--one who buys and sells whatever is purchasable and saleable on the face of the globe, from a s.h.i.+p of war to a comic paragraph in the _Charivari_. He deals in bric-a-brac, sermons, government sinecures, pugs, false hair, light literature, patent medicines, and the fine arts. He lives in the Place des Victoires. Would you like to be introduced to him?”

”Immensely.”

”Well, then, be here by eight to-morrow morning, and I'll take you with me. After nine he goes out, or is only visible to buyers. Here's my bottle of Rhenish--genuine a.s.smanshauser. Are you hungry?”