Part 19 (1/2)
”Very simple,” replied Rodolphe. ”Baptiste has had it all.”
”Stop a minute!” cried Marcel, rummaging in the drawer, where he perceived a paper. ”The bill for last quarter's rent!”
”How did it come there?”
”And paid, too,” added Marcel. ”You paid the landlord, then!”
”Me! Come now!” said Rodolphe.
”But what means--”
”But I a.s.sure you--”
”Oh, what can be this mystery?” sang the two in chorus to the final air of ”The White Lady.”
Baptiste, who loved music, came running in at once. Marcel showed him the paper.
”Ah, yes,” said Baptiste carelessly, ”I forgot to tell you. The landlord came this morning while you were out. I paid him, to save him the trouble of coming back.”
”Where did you find the money?”
”I took it out of the open drawer. I thought, sir, you had left it open on purpose, and forgot to tell me to pay him, so I did just as if you had told me.”
”Baptiste!” said Marcel, in a white heat, ”you have gone beyond your orders. From this day you cease to form part of our household. Take off your livery!”
Baptiste took off the glazed leather cap which composed his livery, and handed it to Marcel.
”Very well,” said the latter, ”now you may go.”
”And my wages?”
”Wages? You scamp! You have had fourteen francs in a little more than a week. What do you do with so much money? Do you keep a dancer?”
”A rope dancer?” suggested Rodolphe.
”Then I am to be left,” said the unhappy domestic, ”without a covering for my head!”
”Take your livery,” said Marcel, moved in spite of himself, and he restored the cap to Baptiste.
”Yet it is that wretch who has wrecked our fortunes,” said Rodolphe, seeing poor Baptiste go out. ”Where shall we dine today?”
”We shall know tomorrow,” replied Marcel.
CHAPTER VIII
THE COST OF A FIVE FRANC PIECE
One Sat.u.r.day evening, at a time when he had not yet gone into housekeeping with Mademoiselle Mimi, who will shortly make her appearance, Rodolphe made the acquaintance at the table d'hote he frequented of a ladies' wardrobe keeper, named Mademoiselle Laure.
Having learned that he was editor of ”The Scarf of Iris” and of ”The Beaver,” two fas.h.i.+on papers, the milliner, in hope of getting her goods puffed, commenced a series of significant provocations. To these provocations Rodolphe replied by a pyrotechnical display of madrigals, sufficient to make Benserade, Voiture, and all other dealers in the fireworks of gallantry jealous; and at the end of the dinner, Mademoiselle Laure, having learned that he was a poet, gave him clearly to understand that she was not indisposed to accept him as her Petrarch.